


The Future

by YamatoxMei



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: :DD, Canon Universe, Fluff, Happy Ending, I completely forgot about cecil..., M/M, Slight Drama, already completed on fanfic.net but decided to post it here too, epilogue included, utapri needs a larger fanbase for these dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4982851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YamatoxMei/pseuds/YamatoxMei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is Natsuki x Syo fluff. :33 Just a random story that I thought up and wanted to post. :) Natsuki wonders how Syo really feels for him but he doesn't really know what to do so he asks Otoya for help... and please read to find out what happens x3 I really love this ship so I hope everyone who reads this enjoys it. :3 I don't own Utapri!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was finally lunch break and because I already finished eating my lunch so I was taking a walk around campus. If I don't say so myself, our school is extremely beautiful. We have a lake that glistens and glitters under the bright sun with the grass and trees around. It doesn't really feel like a school at times, especially when I can't keep my thoughts off of this certain blond who is my dorm mate... let me try to explain his features. He has this fluffy mop like blond hair, green eyes, changes personalities if you take off his glasses, and he is a relatively well shaped man, yet loves fluffy and cute things. Augh! Why am I thinking about that stupid...

"Syo-chan!"

My thoughts were cut off by a familiar voice calling my name. Knowing it was Natsuki, I started to run away. Who knows what he has for me today! Maybe he has some more of his deadly animal shaped cookies like the ones he was trying to get Nanami to eat the other day.

"Syo-chan! Stop running away! I have some cupcakes that I specially made for you today! Syo-chan!" the bubbly blonde with glasses yelled after me.

"Stop screaming my name! Stop running after me! And get those poisonous cupcakes away from me!" I said the last part quietly. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I also didn't want to almost die eating his stupid cupcakes again.

I ran through the halls and found myself in the library. When I looked around, I saw pink hair, a focused pair of yellow eyes, and pale hands working hard to write something that looked like notes onto a score sheet. She was in our school uniform, a blue blazer with a yellow and brown checkered dress. I knew I shouldn't bother her, but I decided to walk over to her and ask her what she was working on.

"Hey Nanami, whatcha workin' on?" I asked.

"Oh! Syo-chan, you surprised me. I'm working on a new song for a group project. I hope my group mates will like it." Nanami replied.

"I'm sure they'll like it! The songs you make are amazing, nobody can hate them." I flashed her a smile to show her I honestly meant what I said.

"Thank you, Syo-chan" she smiled brightly.

We talked a little longer, but I soon left her to continue what she was working on.

I started walking back to the S class. When I started up the stairs to the classroom I heard Natsuki and Otoya.

"Otoya~, do you think Syo-chan hates me? Whenever I try and give him sweets he runs away. Whenever I try to make him dress up in something cute, he gets really mad. Do you think he doesn't get that I like him?" Natsuki asked sadly.

Wait… Hold on… Natsuki said that he liked me… No he just means that he likes me as a friend and he likes seeing me in cute clothes. I mean he wouldn't make someone he likes wear something they are so against right? I'm a man! Not some girl that needs cute clothes.

"Nacchan, I think he just doesn't want you to dress him up.I don't know about the sweets (oh yes he does!), but I'm sure that if you don't force him into the clothes he doesn't like, he will come around." Otoya replied.

"Do you really think so Otoya~? I mean when I just saw him now he ran away from me. What should I do if he really does hate me?!" Natsuki replied, worry and fear overcoming his usual bubbly cute voice.

"I'm sure it's fine Nacchan. If it really bothers you, maybe you should talk to him when school is over. He does share the same dorm with you, so you two will be alone together to talk." Otoya tried his best to comfort the worried Natsuki.

"You're right, I'll just talk to him tonight to ask him! Thank you Otoya~. Ah! The bell rang… I'm so sorry for making you talk to me about this. I took away your precious lunch time." Natsuki said in a sad voice.  
"It's okay Nacchan. I'm happy that you came to ask me for advice. If you ever have something that you need to talk about, you can always talk to me. I will always be here to give you advice!" Otoya replied with a stupid smile on his face, brimming confidence.

I couldn't hear their voices anymore so I took the advantage of running up the next set of stairs to my class. I felt my face get hotter and hotter. I knew that I must have looked like a blushing idiot, but having no way to solve it, I just tried my best to hide my face with my hat as I walked into the class. Luckily the stern-faced Tokiya was the only one in the classroom. He wouldn't have asked me anything. Words can't describe how happy I am knowing stupid Ren, who always calls me freaking "Ochibichan" isn't here. I understand that I'm short and that he's freakishly huge! But that doesn't give him the right to rub it in my face! Crap, right as I was relieved with him not being here, the screaming group of girls he always had following him were screaming his name. How can you be so happy with so many annoying girls calling your name? I just can't understand that guy.

"Yo Ochibichan, what's with the red face?" Ren asked as soon as he saw my stupid red face that decided to continue being stupid and stay as red as a tomato.

"Nothing! And stop calling me Ochibichan! I'm not that short!" I tried my best to keep my normal voice, but dang it, too many things were going on in my head and my voice squeaked a little bit.

"What was that, Ochibichan. That was a first from you" Ren replied, a smirk played across his lips.  
"Oh shut up, and stop calling me Ochibichan!" My voice was finally back to normal and so was my face because this idiot was annoying me.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll just make you tell me later." Ren replied and sauntered over to his own seat as Ryuya-sensei started to walk into the class telling us to get to our seats.

"Okay. How was everyone's lunch? Hope you guys ate enough, but you better not sleep in my class. Especially you over there Ren! The rest of today I'm just going to be talking about…" Ryuya-sensei's voice got farther and farther away as I was getting swallowed up by my thoughts.

I need to piece this together. Natsuki said that he liked me. But he said he was worried if I hated him or not so maybe he didn't mean it in a romantic way. But what would I care if he meant it in a romantic way or not. That has nothing to do with me. Wait to start this all off how do I feel towards him. Do I like him? As a friend? As a love interest? What do I feel towards him. I've been with him since we were little kids. He always annoyed me about how cute I am. I'm not cute! No, I am a man! And men aren't cute! I mean I understand that he thinks I'm short and easy to mess with but still, he's been calling me cute since we were what less than ten! Anyways, he always made me slightly frustrated because he was so good at the violin. He was a freaking genius over there as I was struggling my butt off with practice. Well, I do feel bad for the guy, he was messed up after his violin teacher stole his music and left. He now turns into Satsuki if I take off his glasses, and I don't want to do that. Satsuki is terrifying. Anyways, I don't hate him. Yes, he does annoy me by always telling me that I look cute. I also did get really embarrassed when I heard him say "like", but isn't that completely normal for someone, anyone, well except Ren, to get kinda sorta embarrassed when they hear the word "like" right after their name? Augh, this is driving me crazy. Natsuki is just Natsuki. He is nothing more or less. I wonder how he's going to bring up this topic in the dorm room. I'm just going to pretend like I have a lot of homework tonight. Yes, that way I can stay away from this topic and maybe get away from it. I just hope he doesn't try to get me into a stupid dress today. He better not drag me away from my work just to take freaking pictures of me in a maid outfit with cat ears or something, if he does, that stupid Natsuki is going to regret he was ever…

The bell rang, helping me out of my weird thoughts. I tried packing as fast as I could so that I wouldn't have to talk to Ren, but the stupid rooster-like haired guy had nothing but a stupid notebook and one pencil that he had nothing to pack. He came right up in front of me and said, "Well then Ochibichan, care to explain why you were blushing before class started, and why you looked like you were in Lalaland for almost the entire period? It's incredibly obvious that something is on your mind, maybe something on the lines of your love life? Seeing as to how much you were blushing before class and woah there, wait a little bit, we have plenty of time to talk." He was annoyingly holding the collar of my shirt making it so I couldn't run away as he said the last couple of words.

"Shut up stupid Ren! And how many times do I have to tell you to st-"

"Stop calling you Ochibichan." Ren cut me off. "I understand but it's not happening. Ready to go? We need to discuss this." Ren was starting to get on my nerves, who gave him the right to just go around and tell me what to do? He was just another stupid classmate. I bet if I ran he would be too lazy to chase me. All I need to do is just not let him into my dorm room either. Yes, that is an amazing plan! I will just run away from him as soon as he lets go of the collar of my shirt. Like now!

I made a run for it. Just as planned, Ren didn't come after me. He was too much of a lazy bum and he probably didn't want to let girls see him with his stupid hair messy.

I ran down the stairs to get to the first floor of the school building. When I got out of the building I stopped running, seeing that there was now no reason to run. Not wanting to go straight to the dorms (just in case Natsuki was already there), I decided to take another little walk. I went by the lake again, for some odd reason this lake calms me down. It helps me think about things and not have to worry about other people coming to annoy me. When I got to a good spot that was shaded, I sat down and leaned against the relatively large tree that was giving me shade and stared at the lake. It wasn't too windy today so the ripples in the lake were not enormous, but just right. Just enough to not make it look dead, and not make it look like there was a dangerous creature lurking underneath. The day was just right in general-not too hot and not too cold. The sun was shining brightly and the sky only filled with soft, white, cotton candy-like clouds. Because of all the events that occurred today, I never really got the chance to just enjoy the day. I couldn't keep running away from this topic with Natsuki though. If I'm a man, I need to face this like a man too. Time to head to the dorms then, I guess.

I started to walk towards the dorms and away from the classrooms. Walking to the dorm buildings was actually not that bad, but trying to get up those stairs, now that… that was another story. My legs were moving extremely slow, well I thought they were, but I guess I was moving at a normal speed. The dorm room that I share with Natsuki was right before my eyes. I knew that I just had to walk in there like I always did. Just walk in there and do my best to avoid Natsuki trying to hug me and kill me with his hug.

Just a few more steps.

Okay Syo. You can do this.

Just turn the knob.

Open the door, and act like usual.

I opened the door only to be greeted by silence. To my surprise, Natsuki was still not back in our dorm room. An odd feeling of relief and disappointment mixed together washed over me. I walked over to my hat stand on my side of the room and put the blue fedora I was wearing on the stand. I sat down at my desk also on my side of the room and decided to start my homework before Natsuki could bombarde me with his voice.

I grabbed my little notebook that I used as my planner out of my backpack to check what I had to do for tonight. There was some math, a little bit of English, I needed to think about lyrics to a song, and I had history.

Deciding to do what felt easiest, I grabbed my English out. It was a little worksheet that I needed to just finish because I was able to do most of it in class. I grabbed my English notebook and started to translate the sentences that were written out. The next question read, "Kyou ha kare to eiga no de-to ni ikukoto ni natteimasu." English translation is… ah! "Today I've planned to go on a movie date with my boyfriend." I wonder if this is what Natsuki sees us doing. Going on movie dates, he would probably pick the worst movies, but still I guess it would be nice to see him smiling at a kiddy movie. Wait… how did Natsuki get involved in my English homework. Okay just go to the next problem.

This continued for the next 10 problems that I had left. Everything ended up connecting in some way, shape, or form to Natsuki. It was starting to drive me crazy. Especially the last one freaking had something like "I love you, will you please listen to what I have to say?" or something like that. I swear! The universe just doesn't want me to do my homework!

I noticed that it was starting to get dark outside. I turned on the lamp I had overhead. It was one of those little lamps that you put on your desk.

Next I started my History. It was surprisingly easy. I was done with it about 45 minutes later. I decided to take a little break and eat something. I hadn't had anything since lunch so my stomach was starting to growl on me. I went into the little snack stash that I had in one of my desk drawers. I looked at the time and it was almost 7 o'clock. I was starting to worry, but he wouldn't have gone outside of campus anyways, so he should be fine. Maybe he was even over at Tokiya and Otoya's room. My thoughts wandered off to nowhere and I decided that I should start my Math homework so I could go to sleep early.

I grabbed my math notebook and my calculator. I had no idea what the homework was. It turned out that it was, what I want to say, I'm worst at: Probability. I hate these type of problems with a passion. For some reason they always took me so long to finish and made me sleepy. I was on the 20th out of the 25 problems I had. I looked at the clock and it was already 8:30. I just wanted to throw my work out the window and go to sleep, but I continued working on the problems. I was on the second to last one, and I found myself nodding off. I thought that I could finish the last two soon so I tried to just wake myself up. Failing to do so, I fell asleep on my desk.

Right as I fell asleep, I heard the door to the dorm room open. The next thing I knew, I heard "Syo-chan!" come out of Natsuki's mouth.

I heard Natsuki's footsteps get closer and closer. I didn't wake up though I was just about to fall asleep. "Why is it so dark Syo-chan? Why is only your desk light turn-" Natsuki stopped talking.  
He took a couple steps closer and I heard him shuffling trying to get something out. The next thing I knew I heard the camera noise from his phone go off. It went off at least 20 times until he seemed satisfied with taking pictures of my sleeping face. I was too tired to argue and make him stop. Soon after I heard footsteps get farther and the lights flickered on.

"Syo-chan, Syo-chan, I have this cute outfit for you today! I really want you to wear it!" He said excitedly, shaking me awake. He looked like he was dancing around because he needed to use the restroom or something.

"I'm not wearing it, Natsuki. I told you I don't like cute clothes! I'm a man and will not wear anything that you call cute!" I replied trying my best to win the argument with my drowsy voice.

"That's what you always say at first, but you end up always wearing what I ask you to wear Syo-chan." The bubbly blond countered with a slightly devilish grin. There was no arguing to that. I did always end up wearing whatever he told me to wear. I just couldn't keep saying no after I saw the heartbroken look on his face after I said no about ten times.

"Fine, I'll wear it. What is it today?" I asked in a defeated tired voice.

"Tada!" Natsuki showed excitedly. It was a dress, a freaking dress... well at least it wasn't a maid outfit. There were cat ears… but I guess I could deal with it. It wasn't that bad I guess. But I did resist when he tried to put the dress on me, just for the show of it, it also helped me to wake up. The dress was white and pink. The basic shape of it was normal, lots of frills, but nothing to the point where it looked like a party dress. It had a casual sun-dress feel to it, the frilly layers were pink and fluffy. The material was so soft. It was a strapless dress, something new and different. After he put the dress on me, I thought he would let me take it off, but no, he needed stupid pink ribbons in my hair. I was starting to regret allowing Natsuki to get me into the dress. Then of course he took out his phone again.

"Natsuki! No pictures!" I tried to argue.

"No, Syo-chan don't move. You looked perfect just now! No, don't cover your face! Stop scowl, that doesn't look cute."

Ten minutes later…

"Yay! I got a cute picture of Syo-chan!" Natsuki triumphantly exclaimed.

I was so tired. I just wanted to get out of the dress. "Natsuki help me out of this dang dress!" I yelled.

"Hai, hai. Just hold on. Don't rush it or you might ruin your pretty dress Syo-chan."

"It's not my dress! You just forced me into it!"

Natsuki slowly undid the zipper. I didn't have a shirt on, but I did have shorts on under. I was not stripping into boxers for some stupid dress. Natsuki let me step over the dress and he told me to hang it back on the hanger and give it to him. I did so and he put the dress in my closet. I tried protesting, but once again gave up, I was too tired to argue. I turned my back to him to grab my shirt on my bed and I suddenly felt arms wrapped around my waist. At first I was confused, I looked down to see that there was indeed a pair of arms wrapped around my waist and the warmth I was feeling on my back was Natsuki's chest.

"Natsuki, what are you doing?" I hesitantly asked.

"Syo-chan, do you hate me?" Natsuki replied to my question with a different question. That just proved that he had no intention of answering my question.

"No I don't hate you. Why would I hate you?" I replied as calmly as I could with my heartrate starting to slowly but surely speed up.

"Really?! I'm so relieved! With that out of the way," Natsuki paused for a long time. I almost said something, but he started talking again, "Can we talk?" He asked.

I knew that the talk was about to happen. I didn't want it to come, but I knew that it was inevitable. "Alright just let me go! I need to put my shirt back on!" As soon as I said that, he jumped back and started blushing. I felt kind of bad, but didn't say anything.

After I got my shirt back on, I sat down on my bed and patted the space next to me on my bed gesturing for him to sit down.

"What's on your mind." I asked.


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh! I'm so happy that you don't hate me! I was really worried because sometimes you really seemed like you hated me but then again that's just syo-chan you always act like you're mad but then you're not you just act mad. I know that you do that because we've been together forever. Anyways ah, I'm so relieved. I'm so happy that you still like me…" Natsuki just started going off and talking; I wasn't sure what he was saying because he was talking so fast.

"Natsuki… Natsuki hold on. What are you saying? I can't understand what you're saying because you're talking too fast." I tried to tell him as he was still rambling.

"Oh, sorry Syo-chan. Let me slow down. Umm I… I… I like you an-"

"Yeah I like you too, Natsuki. I told you that I didn't hate you." I cut him off hoping to stop the blush that I was starting to feel coming. My heart was beating way too fast; if it beat a little faster I knew for sure that it would be unhealthy.

"Syo-chan, I don't mean it that way… I mean… umm… Syo-chan I really like you. Like-you like-you. Like… I want to hold your hand," He lifted my hand and entwined our fingers together. "and kiss you," He kissed my cheek. "and… and… go on dates with you," he said with bright eyes.

My body felt like it went up by at least 100 degrees. I felt like a boiler. My blood was boiling and my heart was beating faster than before, which I didn't think could beat any faster than it was already beating .

"Umm… Natsuki…" I said my face as red as a tomato. "I… I umm don't really know what you mean; I mean I don't know what I feel for you - I mean ahh! I just don't know. We've been close since we were little kids, but I… I don't know and I don-"  
Natsuki stopped my stuttering and sputtering by kissing me on my lips. We didn't separate from the kiss for a while. What do I do? Do I just sit here and do nothing or do I just push him away? He bit my lower lip getting my attention again as I gasped a little surprised and he started sucking on my lower lip. I couldn't help but let out a little moan. What was that!? That's not normal... Why did I just moan? I mean it did feel good, but that's weird! My eyelids closed instinctively and I started to get into the kiss. It felt so weird yet nice at the same time. I can't be liking this. How could I like this. It's Natsuki kissing me. The annoying Natsuki that always gets into my head and always tries to get me into cute things. My feelings were all a mess. I didn't know what was going on. When Natsuki released my lips from his I was trying to say that I was happy he let my lips go in my head, but what my brain was really telling me was "You liked it. You want more. You like Natsuki, but you don't want to admit it. You know you like him, so just confess it to him." I couldn't be tricked by my stupid brain!

I looked back at Natsuki, he looked adorable. He was blushing so hard and trying his best to cover his face with his hands.

"Natsu-" As soon as I tried to call out his name, he ran away from my bed and went to his. He grabbed his piyo-chan pillow and smashed his face into it. I could see that his ears were red. I didn't know that was really possible; I chuckled internally a little bit.

"Natsu-" I tried again but was cut off by Natsuki.

"Syo-chan don't come near me, I'm too embarassed! I don't even know if you like me back, but I just kissed you like that! I'm so sorry!" Natsuki sounded like he was almost about to cry.

"Natsuki." I grabbed the pillow from his hands and made him look me in the eyes. With a little bit of a pout on my face and a definite blush on my cheeks, I was finally able to say the words that I had such a hard time saying. "I… I lik… I like you too." I looked away when I said it.

I took a little peek back at Natsuki to see what kind of facial expression he had. His eyes were beautiful, shining green orbs with hints of tears tugging on the ends of his eyes. I started to worry if I made him cry or something, but then I saw the stupid grin on his face.

"Syo-chan… Do you really mean that?" Natsuki asked in a quiet voice.

"Yeah! Of course I do. A man doesn't lie." I replied trying my best to sound tough.

"Say it again? Please?" Natsuki started to ask me.

"Say what again?" I asked, slightly confused.

"Say you like me again! Please! Pretty please!"

"No!"

"Why not? Do you not like me anymore? I could tell you a million times that I like you! I can even say that I love you. See! I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love yo-"  
"Dammit shut-up! I LOVE YOU OKAY?! Are you happy?" I said feeling my face getting really hot. I just wanted to go dig a hole in the ground outside and just live in it for the rest of my life.

"Syo-chan…" Natsuki replied. The sound of his voice scared me. It sounded like the kind of voice he would let out when he was about to cry. I didn't want to hear him cry. Hearing him cry was the worst thing ever, it was even worse than high places. I looked over at him fearing a tear streaked face. What I saw seemed to be almost the complete opposite. He seemed so happy. "Syo-chan" he said my name again. This time I looked down at his face. He grabbed me at the waist and put his lips against mine again. This time I was a lot more comfortable, I closed my eyes again and let myself get absorbed into the kiss. His lips were so soft and he was so gentle. This was his sweet side, the side that I loved about him oh so much (but of course wouldn't admit it).

He started to suck on my bottom lip again, I was starting to really like that. I made a little distance between us. Natsuki was just so cute. He showed me the biggest smile I had ever seen from him.

"Syo-chan, I'm so happy," Natsuki said with that idiotic grin still plastered on his face.

"Yeah, I guess I am too," I replied trying my best not to sound as happy as I really was. This was not like me, not like me at all.

"Hehehe." Natsuki started giggling like he was high off of helium or something. I looked at the clock that was set on my table and it read 12:30. Wait 12:30?! We have class tomorrow! We need to start getting ready to sleep.

"Natsuki, we need to start getting ready to go to sleep!"

"Ha~i" Natsuki replied, still sounding like he was high off of something.

We quickly took showers and got ready for the next day. I started to wonder if Natsuki got his homework done or not… oh well. No use thinking about it now at this time of night.

"I'm gonna turn the lights off, Natsuki."

"Okay~" He replied.

"Good night."

"Nighty night Syo-chan."

I started shuffling over to my bed being careful not to knock anything over. I finally got to it and got under my covers when I heard Natsuki calling my name again.

"What's wrong Natsuki?" I asked.

"Ne, ne, Syo-chan, can I sleep in your bed? Please~?" Natsuki replied. I could hear the pleading and begging in his voice.

"Why? Our beds are too small to fit two people." I replied trying to make an argument. If he came into my bed I wouldn't be able to get to sleep. My heart would be beating too fast.

"But I want to feel Syo-chan's warmth. I want to be with you even when I'm sleeping, Syo-chan. It's lonely and cold to sleep on this bed alone." He replied.

"But…"

"Please~? Pretty please with a cherry on top~?" Natsuki asked, who could deny Natsuki's pretty please? There was even a cherry on top! Well, I sure couldn't.

"Fine, but you better let me get to sleep." I tried to sound like I wasn't happy about him coming in next to me to sleep.

"Yay~!" I heard Natsuki say as a huge blob of a shadow came towards me. Natsuki got behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. He put his lips next to my ear and whispered, "I love you Syo-chan. I love you sooo~ much." With that he kissed my neck.

"I… I love you too. Officially good night," I replied, a little smile on my lips.


	3. Chapter 3

"Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!"

My alarm clock woke me up, telling me that it was 6:30 AM. I groaned and moved around in my bed to try and turn it off. As I moved though, I felt something behind me.

What the heck?!

I turned around after I turned off my alarm clock to look at the lump behind me. Said lump was Natsuki. As I admired his adorable sleeping face, all the events of last night came to mind. As they came back to me, I felt my face slowly get hotter and hotter. Natsuki and I kissed. We held hands. We confessed to each other, well he one-sidedly confessed and forced it out of me. We slept together, cuddling on my bed.

"Syo-chan, please? Please wear the piyo-chan outfit I got for yo-" I cut off the stupid dream that Natsuki was having by yelling his name and shaking him awake.

"Natsuki! Natsuki! Wake up! We need to get ready for school! And please don't make me wear a piyo-chan outfit…" I slightly emphasized the end.

"Good morning Syo-chan." Natsuki replied while yawning.

"Yeah good morning, hurry up and get up." I pulled his arms to help him up. When he finally stood up, he pecked my lips. I could have sworn I heard a "poof" noise from my face exploding because I was blushing too much, too fast.

"Hehehe." Natsuki giggled as he ran to the bathroom to get ready.

"Don't do that at school!" I yelled at his retreating back seriously hoping he wouldn't pull a stunt like that at school.

After Natsuki got ready, I went into the bathroom to get ready too. We were both finally in our uniforms and decided to head over to school soon.

I had to make sure to warn Natsuki not to do anything at school. If people find out they might look at us weirdly. I didn't want that to happen. Natsuki is innocent and addorable he shouldn't be judged.

"Okay Natsuki, remember that you-"

"I don't kiss you, say I love you, hug you, hold your hand, or do anything romantic to you that may weird people out. I get it Syo-chan. I promise you I won't if it makes you feel that weird." Natsuki finished off my sentence.

"Pinky promise Natuski?"

"Pinky promise." We clutched pinkeys and as a thank you in advance, I got on my tiptoes and gave him a little kiss. More than a peck, but not to the point of sticking our tongues into each others mouths. Natsuki wrapped his arms around my waist and smiled into the kiss. I knew he was happy.

After the kiss, I tried to get Natsuki to calm down a little bit. He was too happy to go to school.

It took about 5 minutes of hugging and calming Natsuki down, we finally walked out into the hallway and I mentally prepared myself to go to school. I knew that if I didn't act the way that I usually do, people would start to think that something really did happen between Natsuki and me.

"Nacchan! Syo-chan! Good Morning!" We heard Otoya running down the hallway to catch up to us.

"Yo. Mornin'." I replied

"Good morning Otoya~!" Natsuki replied.

"I struggled so much waking up this morning. My alarm didn't wake me up, so I woke up to Tokiya's terrifying death glare" Otoya said in a sad voice. I felt kinda bad for the guy. Tokiya could be scary if he tried.

"It's okay Otoya. At least he didn't kick you out of the dorm and lock the door," I replied trying to cheer him up.

"Yeah Otoya~! Syo-chan did that to me before. Not because I wouldn't wake up, but because I was trying to get Syo-chan to wear a really cute and pretty dress. That dress would have made Syo-chan cute too!" Natsuki said trying to cheer Otoya up too.

"Shut up Natsuki! I'm not cute! I'm a man!" I glared at him, but he laughed because he knew I was only trying to hide my embarrassment.

"Ochibichan, how are you so awake this early in the morning?" I heard Ren say behind me. He was walking in front of Hijirikawa. They were dorm mates so it made sense that they walked to school together.

"Stop calling me Ochibichan!" I yelled back at Ren, growling a little.

"Yeah, sure you aren't," Ren replied, not caring at all.

We all walked up to the school talking about the classes we were and weren't looking forward to.

"I still think that Hyuga-sensei is the coolest!" Otoya said randomly. Of course he was! He's the Prince of Fights!

"I know right!" I replied, "He's the Prince of Fighting! He was so cool in that series!" I aspired to be like Hyuga-sensei. I felt like my eyes were sparkling from admiration for him.

We ended up already in front of class A.

"Hey, Otoya, can I talk to you for a little bit?" I heard Natsuki whisper very quietly to Otoya, like he had a big secret to tell him.

"Sure, what's wrong?" I heard Otoya ask in response to Natsuki's request.

"Nothing's wrong, just want to talk." I heard Natsuki reply.

"Okay then," Otoya replied. I wonder what that was all about. Why was Natsuki being all secretive?

I started wondering what they were going to talk about. Maybe he's going to tell Otoya about us? I don't mind… but I mean it's Otoya. He's an awesome friend, but not the best secret keeper. Maybe he's just going to tell him about the new dre-

"Good morning Syo-chan!" Nanami and Tomochika called out to me in unison.

"Mornin' Nanami, Tomochika," I replied. The bell was about to ring so I told them that I would talk to them later and ran up the stairs.

I decided not to dwell on the conversation that Otoya and Natsuki were having.

Four hours went by in a breeze. It was a surprisingly easy-going day. I felt really happy that it was already lunch. I walked down to the cafeteria but was suddenly attacked from behind. I was so confused and I whirled around trying to see who was trying to jump on my back. It was Otoya.

"What are you doing?! You scared me half to death!" I kinda yelled at him, not it a "I hate you" way, but the "what the heck are you doing?!" kinda way.

"Sorry Syo-chan, just wanted to congratulate you!" he replied with a blinding smile.

"Congratulate me for what?" I asked, puzzled by the random congratulation. I didn't do anything congratulatorily worthy.

"You know on…" he was making a "continue after what I'm saying" movement with his hands.

"On what? I have no idea what you're talking about." I really didn't get it. Otoya slowly got closer to me and whispered into my ear.

"On your relationship with Nacchan." He pulled back with the stupidest grin on his face, like he was embarrassed or something.

"Wha… How… Who… When… Wait… What?!" I was so shocked. How the heck did Otoya know about Natsuki and me?! We had only been going out for a little over half a freaking day!

"Nacchan told me this morning." He was still grinning with his super bright smile like it was the best news in the world.

He did tell Otoya… I knew he was going to, but still… Otoya will definitely tell someone else.

"Umm… did you… uhh…" I felt my hands get clammy and I got really nervous. "Did you tell anyone else?" I finished my question, hoping the answer was no.

"I told Haru-chan, Tomo-chan, Masato, Ren through text, and Tokiya." His stupid smile was still there, and of course he told stupid Ren. He's going to be messing with me now that he knows. He's going to have that "ochibichan, I shall murder you with creepy jokes" look on his stupid face. I don't know how to explain it but he always knows how to get on my nerves in the right way.

"Oh… okay… I'll… I'll talk to you later then Otoya… yeah… see you later…" I replied in a state of shock that my sexuality was now exposed to all of my friends.

I weaved my way through all the people in the cafeteria to get my own food. I decided on just making myself feel better with comfort food because I knew that it would help me feel better about the whole situation.

"Obachan, can I have a burger with a side of fries and a coke?" I asked the lunch lady behind the counter.

"Sure, hold on just a second. Go ahead and slide the card for the food," she replied, going into the kitchen to tell the cooks my order.

Five minutes later, she had my food and drink out.

I told her thank you as I grabbed my tray of food and she smiled warmly.

I walked over to the place I normally sat at to eat. The group was there, the group that knew about the secret...

"Hi Syo-chan!" Natsuki called out to me as I walked up to the table. I looked at the faces that looked up to me. They all looked happy, well, with the exception of Ren because he had a smirk on his face.

"Hey, Natsuki." I replied. Natsuki patted the space next to him telling me to sit there. I sat down and looked at the rest of the group. They were all smiling at me brightly.

"Uhh... hi everyone." I tried to break the silence and the awkwardness.

"Syo-chan, congratulations!" Everyone at the table told me.

"What? Why are you all congratulating me?" I was really confused. Weren't they weirded out by it?

"It's about time you two got together, Ochibichan." Ren replied with a smirk.

"You two are just so cute, and Syo-chan, just admit it, you're a tsundere. You don't admit what you like when it comes to emotions," Tomochika added in after Ren.

"You guys seriously aren't weirded out by it?" I was in shock. I really thought that they would all stop talking to me. I thought that most people were still against gays. I've heard some stories of friends turning on other friends just because they find out about their sexuality.

"Syo-chan, we like you for you, there is no way we would hate you for liking Natsuki. You two were so cute that we all wanted you to be together," Nanami replied. "We like you guys for you, even if you guys are gay."

"Really?" I asked surprised at what Nanami had said. I couldn't ask for a better friend. It really felt like she didn't mind, which she probably didn't, but still. Just hearing it makes a big difference.

"Yes, of course! There is no point in lying to you about something like this!" Nanami really knew how to make people happy.

"Thanks you guys." I didn't know how to put it into words, but I was really thankful.

"Syo-chan, so can we hold hands now that everyone knows?" Natsuki asked, his eyes pleading as much as his voice was.

"Na… Natsuki shh! Other people are here. Wouldn't it be bad if Saotome found out? He is everywhere, but we have to at least not be obvious about it." I replied. Natsuki looked really sad. After seeing his face, I felt bad, but I couldn't jeopardize our dreams of becoming idols. I kept remembering the "NO DATING" policy that Hyuga-sensei yelled at us about on the first day of school.

"Then will you make it up to me later?" The corners of Natsuki's lips tugged up into the most adorable smile.

"Yes, I promise to make it up to you later. Just not in front of people okay Natsuki?" I looked at Natsuki and he looked so happy. It was so cute how he would get so happy with just a promise.

Everyone at the table was just staring at us with smirks on their faces. It was embarrassing, but it was for Natsuki. I needed to get used to it!

I grabbed my phone to look at the time. Lunch was almost over! I needed to hurry up and eat my food.

We all started talking about how the day was feeling kinda short. It was a nice day, in more ways than just one. I was really afraid of having to hide our relationship to the group because it almost felt like we were lying to them.

The bell rang on time and we all started to head back to our classes.

I heard Natsuki, Haruka, Otoya, Masato, and Tomochika all talking together about how our relationship started. They were trying to squeeze all of the details out of Natsuki while they still could. It was adorable because Natsuki was getting flustered and embarrassed talking about kissing and cuddling.

We got to class A and went our separate ways.

As I was walking up the stairs with Ren and Tokiya, Ren suddenly broke the silence.

"Congrats Ochibichan." He smirked as he said this.

"Thanks," I said honestly, but was still irritated with the stupid smirk on his face that said "I so knew this was going to happen, and now I'm going to push your buttons for the rest of your life."

"Try not to get caught, " Tokiya said so suddenly that it surprised me.

"I know" I replied to his statement.

"You're trying to become an idol, but you're in a relationship. Not only that, but with a male. Imagine what could happen if you two really do become idols and the people found out. I wouldn't be surprised if the school had you expelled if they found out." He pressed on. I was taken aback a little. I knew this was bothering me, but I don't think I wanted to admit it. Deep down, I knew he was right.

We got to our classroom and got to our seats. We waited for class to begin. Once again, I started spacing out and thinking. Questions like, "What should we do about our relationship?" and "What if people find out?" and "What would Satsuki think about all of this?" started coming to mind and I couldn't focus on the lesson.

I knew that I still needed to talk to Satsuki about this, and I also knew that Natsuki and I seriously needed to talk about our relationship. Holding it off wouldn't do anybody any good. Tonight. I would do it tonight.

I'm going to talk to Natsuki and Satsuki tonight and we will decided whether we should or shouldn't continue being in this relationship.


	4. Chapter 4

The bell rang telling all of us that school was over.

"Okay then, everyone be sure that you do all of your homework!" Hyuuga-sensei told us as we as he left the classroom.

I kept trying to think of how I should start this conversation with Natsuki.

I slowly packed all of my things into my bag and started walking to the door of the classroom.

"Yo, Ochibichan. Looks like you have a someone waiting for you." Ren whispered into my ear. I jumped because I was caught off guard.

"What are you talking abo-" The person in front of me was able to answer the question I cut off part-way. Natsuki was waving his hand at me and smiling the biggest smile in the world.

"Syo-chan! I came to pick you up!" Natsuki's smile grew even bigger as he saw the surprised expression on my face.

"Oh! Um! Hi, Natsuki! Thanks for picking me umm, up!" I tried to reply as normally as possible. I haven't organized my thoughts yet, and he was just there, right in front of me.

We started walking down the hall to get to the stairs.

"Today was such a good day! Ringo-chan was so cute and nice today too! He's the best! I hope that we can still be close with him even after we become idols!" Natsuki just kept on talking and talking, but the last thing I heard before I zoned out hit me. Idols… yes… we were trying to be idols. Yet, we love each other, a guy and a guy. How was I going to start this topic with Natsuki? Should I talk to Satsuki first? No. No, that is a horrible idea. He might go berserk and strangle me to death. But if I talk to Natsuki first, he might take it the wrong way and think I don't love him anymore or something. How am I supposed to start a conversation like this?! Satsuki's not crazy. No, I take that back. He is crazy, but he's an understandable kind of crazy. I just need to sort out my thoughts a little mor-

"chan! Syo-chan! Syo-chan!" Natsuki cut me off from my thoughts by shaking me and screaming my name.

"Sorry Natsuki." I replied as I tried to get him to calm down a little bit. Ren had a smirk on his face. It almost looked like he was asking me "Do you want me to leave you two lovebirds alone?"

"It's okay Syo-chan, I was just worried because you looked like you were seriously thinking about something. It almost looked like you were in pain." Natsuki replied, with worry written all over his face.

"I'm fine," I replied to him. I hated that Natsuki was so good at reading my expressions. I admit I was thinking really hard and that it is giving me a hard time, but I'm not in pain. I don't think I am….

As we started heading over to the dorms, we talked a little bit. I wasn't really listening or taking part in the conversation as I continued thinking about how to start the conversation with Natsuki, or maybe Satsuki. As I continued to contemplate, we passed by the lake.

"See you later, Ren," I mumbled as I grabbed Natsuki's wrist and pulled him away.

"See you two love birds later," He replied as he was doing his best to hold in a laugh.

"Syo-chan. Syo-chan. Syo-chan! What's wrong?!" Natsuki kept calling my name. He seemed really happy about holding hands because he wouldn't let go.

"Sorry Natsuki, I wanted to look at the lake a little bit," I replied, trying to find myself some time to organize my thoughts.

We finally got to the spot that I normally sat at. It was under a big tree. If we sat there, people wouldn't bother me, so it would be perfect. We sat there for about 20 minutes. Natsuki started talking to the birds that were coming near us.

"Okay, sorry Natsuki. Let's head back to the dorms," I tugged on his arms, telling him to stand up.

"Syo-chan," Natsuki replied and grabbed my hand and entwined our fingers. I slightly blushed but didn't say anything. Natsuki giggled as he saw my face getting red. Surprisingly, nobody was around us, so I didn't let go. When we got to the dorms, he let go of my hand without me having to say anything. I'm so happy that he actually kept the promise.

"Nacchan! Syo-chan!" We both turned around and saw Otoya run up to us.

"What?!" I asked, surprised. "What happened?!"

"Hehehehe" Otoya giggled, "I heard from Ren that you held Nacchan's hand and ran away with him to get some alone time," Otoya finished with a goofy grin on his lips.

"He did!" Natsuki replied in excitement and joy.

"Shhhh!" I tried to get them to calm down. They kept talking about it so I decided to escape. It was my only way of getting people not to see my face as red as a tomato.

I looked around and found that I could escape by running up the stairs. That way nobody would catch me. I silently counted in my head, 'three, two, one… go!' and started running. Everyone around me didn't know how I ran up the stairs so fast, all they heard was a "whoosh" sound as I darted up the stairs.

"Whew" I sighed as I closed the door behind me. I went over to my desk and put my bag down. I took off my hat and put it in its appropriate spot on the hatstand, and I walked over to Natsuki's bed and sat on it. After organizing my thoughts a little bit I came to the conclusion of talking to Satsuki first.

I was feeling a little tired and Natsuki was taking a lot of time coming up to our room. His bed felt really comfortable under my bum so I decided to lay down a little bit. When I layed down, the bed made a little "fwump" sound, I felt welcomed by it, but not at the same time. My head was on Natsuki's pillow. It smelled like him. I don't want to say it smells like sunshine because that's just really cliche… but it does. It smells like happiness. I wish he were with me… I want to hug him… I want him to cuddle me… I want him to kiss me… My thoughts trailed off as I fell asleep.

"Click" I heard the door open but I didn't move. My body still felt heavy from my nap.

"Syo-chan, sorry I was talking with Oto-" I felt like there was a big shadow over me, it was Natsuki. "Oh you look so cute," he whisper-squealed.

I grunted and opened my eyes. "Natsuki?" I asked, making sure it was him.

"Mhm," He replied in his bubbly voice. I really didn't want to do what I was about to do but I mustered up the courage. I sat up and whispered "Sorry, Natsuki," as I grabbed his glasses.

His aura changed.

"What the hell are you doing you fuckin' midget?!" I heard Natsuki's voice, yet it wasn't his. This was Satsuki.

"Sorry, I just needed to ask you a couple of questions and get your advice," I replied, putting up my hands defensively.

"Why the hell do you need me then? Ask Natsuki. Isn't he better at advice giving?" He paused for a short while, then an evil smile formed on his lips. "On second thought, why don't you tell me about this relationship you have with Natsuki?" He put air quotes when he said relationship. "You know, getting him into something even without my approval?"

"I'm sorry about that," I replied "But I really do love Natsuki. I want you to know that first of all. I also wanted to ask you if we should continue our relationship beca-" I was cut off by the force of Satsuki's push. He shoved me against the wall that was right next to Natsuki's bed.

"What the hell are you saying?! You fuckin' get his damn hopes up and now you're gonna crush them?! Just like that bitch who fucked up his life in the first place?! Why the hell are you trying to make him re-live that kind of pain?! I knew that I couldn't fuckin' trust you! Who knew it was for this damn reason!" Satsuki was really pissed off. Fuck. I cursed myself.

"Satsuki! Listen, you got it all wrong!" I tried to explain, but my words were strained because he was holding my throat.

"Whaddya say?" He asked, loosening the grip on my throat. He must have understood that I couldn't breathe. This told me that he didn't want me dead… yet.

I cleared my throat. "I wanted to talk to you first so that I wouldn't hurt him," I explained.

He looked a little surprised as he let go of my throat. "Shoulda said that earlier, you damn midget," I was taking that as his version of an apology.

I started coughing to get the air that I needed back into my lungs. "I wanted to tell you about our current relationship and ask about what to do for the future. We are the same gender, same sex, both males, whatever you want to say, and we are both trying to become idols. Love is forbidden, and if people were to find out that we were in a relationship and that we are both idols, then… you know where I'm going with this right?" Satsuki nodded.

"I don't know all of this difficult shit… but if you two love each other there is nothing I can do about it but accept it…" he sounded a little weirded out, but happy at the same time. "So I think that you two shouldn't break up or whatever. I think that you two should be together. I hate to admit this, but Natsuki has never been happier." He looked away probably feeling embarrassed about what he had said.

I felt a little embarrassed, but I was really happy. "Satsuki," I called out to him to get his attention.

"Huh?" He replied. He probably knew that we were almost done talking.

"I also wanted to say that I wanted to learn to love you too. It's not going to be the same way that I love Natsuki of course, because that's for Natsuki." I blushed a little as I said that last part. "But I want to be able to think of you as family. And I know you might hate this, but I see you almost as a father figure for Natsuki. And I love you for it, because you always look out for him. Thank you, Satsuki." I smiled at him. He didn't smile back, but he wasn't scowling anymore either.

"Shut up, you midget. You need to talk to Natsuki now right?" He asked grabbing the glasses from my hands. "Treat him well, got it? Or I'll kill you." With that, he put on the glasses and Natsuki was back.

"What happened, Syo-chan?" He was so confused. "Is everything okay Syo-cha" I cut off his question by kissing him. It was gentle and nothing too much, but not a peck.

"Everything is fine Natsuki," I smiled up to him and he seemed to relax. He sat down on his bed next to me.

"If you say so," he replied with a little goofy grin.

"But I need to talk to you, Natsuki." I looked him straight in the eyes. "You know I love you, right?" I asked him. I knew that trying to take an easy way out was going to be the hard way with Natsuki so I just went straight to what the topic at hand was.

"Ye… yes I do know that. What's wrong all of a sudden Syo-chan?" Natski was blushing a little bit. I couldn't believe it. I made him embarrassed! I felt like I should have won something right there.

"I need to talk to you about some things that you may get sad about, but will you listen to me all the way without crying and actually discuss this with me?" I asked him seriously. I really didn't want to hurt him, but this needed to be talked out. I couldn't continue to ignore the elephant in the room, as people say.

"Okay Syo-chan… if it's something that you really need to talk about, I will listen," Natsuki replied with a little worry in his voice. He was making a sad face-I just really didn't want him to cry. that was the last thing that I wanted.

"I just need to talk to you about the future," I smiled up at him. He seemed to relax a little bit when I put the conversation like that. He must have been thinking I was going to break up with him… I don't want to, but depending on his answer… well… I might have to.

"The future?!" Natsuki asked excitedly. He seemed really happy about the topic. "We are going to have two kids, a dog, a nice house,we will both have the same wedding band, and we are going to be in the same idol group together, with everyone else and Nanami is going to be our composer and… and… Tomochika will be our friend, but not in our idol group." Natsuki went on and on as he continued to list the things he wanted us to have in our future. That made me happy. It meant that he wanted to marry me.

"Okay Natsuki, hold on… we need to talk about us being idols." I tried to calm him down a little bit.

"What about it? We are going to be idols, right?" Natsuki asked innocently.

"Yes, but remember the no dating policy that Ringo-chan talked about before? We are trying to be idols to we can't be in a rela-"

"I don't care! I love you Syo-chan and I want to be with you forever. I don't care about people who say we can't be in a relationship!" Natsuki actually sounded mad. This doesn't happen very often, but this was one of those rare occasions.

"Natsuki, calm down a little bit. I needed to ask you about that," I crawled onto his lap. Most people would say that I was straddling him, but this was the best way to have my face right in front of his. It was also the best position to hug him. His arms wrapped around my waist as I wrapped mine around the back of his neck and whispered into his ear, "Natsuki, I needed to ask you if you were okay with being in a relationship even though people may think that we are weird or different because we are in a relationship together. I needed to ask you if you were okay with hiding our relationship from people, excluding Nanami and them. I needed to make sure so I wouldn't drag you into something you were not ready for. Are you okay with our relationship being like that?" I asked him and pulled away from his ear.

"Can we kiss and hug when people are not looking? Like, when we are alone?" He asked, his eyes shining with what looked almost like tears forming. His expression screamed innocence.

"Of course we can, I mean look at what I'm doing right no-" Warm, soft, loving lips touched mine. They were so gentle. He kissed me all over my face, on my lips, on my cheeks, on my forehead, on my eyelids, on my chin. It was adorable. He stopped kissing me and looked up into my eyes.

"Can we still do stuff like that?" He asked, how could anyone say no to those puppy eyes? Not that I was going to say no, but still! To respond to his question, I simply kissed him all over his face like he did to me.

"Does that answer your question?" I smiled at him. I knew that my face was red, and by red I mean as red as a tomato, a strawberry, an apple, a thing of lipstick, whatever you wanna say. I was just extremely red, but it was Natsuki. I didn't mind if he saw this side of me once in a while. I looked at the time and noticed why I was getting a little sleepy. I covered my mouth as I yawned. "I'm going to take a quick shower, brush my teeth and go to sleep." I told Natsuki as I crawled off of him.

"Me too!" Natsuki replied.

"Did you want to take one first? Or did you want to go after me?" I asked him a little confused.

"No! I want to take one with you!"

"Wha… What?! No! No way are we going to take showers together! I will go first!" My face felt like it had exploded from the embarrassment I felt.

"Syo-chan, ne~ Syo-chan. Please? Can we please?" He was begging me as he followed me to the bathroom.

"No way!" I replied as I walked into the bathroom and locked the door.

I quickly took my shower, dried my hair, and brushed my teeth. I got into my boxers, pajama pants that were light blue with yellow vertical stripes running through them, and a white tee shirt.

"Your turn Natsu-" I was welcomed back into the room by light snores. Natsuki fell asleep. "Natsuki, Natsuki. Natsuki!" I tried to wake him up but nothing was working. I decided to pull on him arms and drag him out of bed.

Natsuki grumbled in his sleep.

"Come on Natsuki wake up! You need to take a shower!" He opened his eyes and nodded sleepily. He looked like a little kid that was forced awake by his parents. "Take a shower and after you do, I promise to sleep in the same bed with you again. This seemed to motivate him a little bit and he started taking off his shirt. I let him be and went over to his bed. I heard the shower turn on and knew that he had finally gotten in. His bed was so warm. It made me feel safe.

After a couple of minutes the shower turned off and I heard him brushing his teeth.

"Ah, mou! Natsuki! You're going to get sick if you keep your hair wet like that!" I yelled at him as I passed by him to grab a little towel. I got him to sit down on his bed and I stood over him on the floor drying his hair. It took me about ten minutes, but his hair was mostly dry now.

"Okay, lets get ready for bed." With this, Natsuki crawled under his blankets and opened them up to let me in. I snuggled in after I put the towel back in the bathroom and turned off the lights. Natsuki wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed my cheek.

"I love you, Syo-chan," he told me, his voice slightly over a whisper.

"I love you too," I whispered back, and we both fell asleep.

As usual, my alarm woke me up and we both got ready for school.

"Syo-chan!" Natsuki called out to me and kissed my lips. "Good morning!"

"Good morning Natsuki," I replied, and kissed him back.

We were ready for school and we walked out of our dorm for school.

We had our smalltalk as usual with our other friends, but when we got to the school Ringo-chan called out to us.

"Syo, Natsuki, Tokiya, Otoya, Nanami, Tomochika, Ren, Masato: I need to talk to you all. Please follow me." Ringo chan was acting a little weird. She had a serious tone in her voice. I wondered if we did something wrong. We stopped in a little room. It was secluded and nobody could find us or hear us. There were chairs and desks so she told us to sit down. The only sound that was made were the clacking of her shoes. "So I've been hearing certain words that have been flying around your group, words like "relationship," "love," and "holding hands." Do you eight mind telling me anything about that?" With that, we knew that our relationship was going to be over… Ringo-chan found out.


	5. Chapter 5

"Okay, so you two are in a relationship, correct?" Ringo-chan asked Natsuki and me. We both looked at the floor, unsure of how to respond to his question.

"Ringo-chan, please don't get mad at them, they won't do anything to-"

"Who ever said I was going to get mad?" Ringo-chan cut off Nanami as she tried to defend us. "I was only asking if you two were. You would be surprised by how many of us are gay." I was guessing he meant idols when he said "us."

"You mean there are a lot of other idols who are in relationships with people of the same gender?" I asked him, seriously surprised by what he was telling us.

"I can't really speak for other people because they keep it under wraps, but I'm in a relationship with another guy." He smiled at us with a hint of blush on his cheeks. I thought that he was going to tell Saotome about us having a relationship, but maybe he was just here to cheer us up and give us some advice?

"Wait. Who are you in a relationship with?" I asked, understanding what he just told us.

"Ryuuya." He blushed a little bit as he revealed his secret to us. My eyes opened up wide because I couldn't believe it. I looked over at my fellow friends and everybody but Ren was in shock. Ren yet again had a stupid smirk on his face. He must have known… but how the heck did he know?!

"Well, I saw that coming," Ren whispered so that only those around him could hear, but then Ringo-chan turned around and glared at him.

"Anyways," Ringo-chan cleared his throat, "there are certain things that you need to do. I promise to keep it a secret and I mean I completely support you two, but you need to make sure that your relationship doesn't spread. If people find out, then you two will be forced apart and I wouldn't be surprised if Saotome went out of his way to make sure you two could never be idols again." I knew that our principal had a lot of influence in this world, but I didn't expect something like that….

"We know that Ringo-chan. We have only told this group and that's it. They are the only people we plan on telling." Natsuki replied to Ringo-chan.

"Okay, good. And don't forget to keep my relationship with Ryuuya a secret too," he winked at us innocently, but we all knew that he had a menacing aura behind the innocent looking smile.

"Of course we won't," we all replied in unison.

"Good!" Ringo-chan smiled the biggest smile that I had ever seen on him. "Now, we need to all get out without looking suspicious, so if anyone asks, just say that you were helping me find something. See you later in class!" With that, he walked off.

"That was kinda scary," Natsuki said after we were left with our friends.

"At least Ringo-chan supports you two though! That means he won't tell anyone so it's good for you guys," Otoya replied to Natsuki, he just knew how to make things sound so much better.

"Yeah, thanks Otoya," I replied as we all started walking over to class.

Today was Friday, so everyone in class was a little rowdy. The girls talked about who's room they were going to sleep over in for the weekend, and the guys were all planning on either playing Diablo 3, World of Warcraft, League of Legend, or just watching horror movies.

The door opened and in came Hyuuga-sensei.

"Hey! Class is about to start! Get to your seats!" Everyone obeyed and went to their assigned seats. "As you all know, today is Friday, and I'm in a good mood today, so we are going to just study music. I don't want you to listen to a piece and tell me what period it was from or who made it, but I just want you guys to tell me what you think the composer was thinking as they were making each song. Do you think they were in love and trying to express it to the person they loved? Do you think that they were alone and used the music as a way to escape their lonesome depression? That is all that we are doing in my class today. I'm sure that your other teachers feel the same today, so just don't piss them off." With this, Hyuuga-sensei went over to the CD player and got us to listen to music. Some of the songs were piano and orchestra pieces while some were recent. One song took me by surprise though. I really loved how it sounded. I asked Hyuuga-sensei for the name of the piece, and he told me it was Chopin's Ballade number 1 in g minor, opus 23. It was a relaxing class period. And as Hyuuga-sensei said, all the other teachers didn't seem to feel like teaching and just let us all have free periods. It was really odd, but nice. This was a great way to get to the weekend.

We were near the end of school and people were starting to get really antsy about leaving the classroom.

Homeroom went by faster than Hyuuga-sensei wanted because he wasn't able to finish his sentence. Nobody dared to get up because we would get a lecture, but after he wished us all a good weekend everybody started packing up. Before I knew it, I was running towards Hyuuga-sensei, trying to catch up to him.

"HYUUGA-SENSEI!" I ran after him trying to get his attention.

"Syo, what's wrong? Why are you running after me?" Hyuuga-sensei asked me, confusion and worry mixed together in his expression.

"Umm…" I didn't know what to say, well I did know, but it felt weird asking him, "I… I wanted some life advice." I smiled at him awkwardly as I was trying to think of the right way to ask him the question that had been on my mind all day.

"Oh! Sure!" He seemed extremely happy, almost like he was really happy that one of his students would ask him for life advice but was trying to cover it up.

"Umm… can I ask you in a private place?" I asked, feeling embarrassed.

There was an awkward silence for a while. I didn't know if I crossed a line when I said "private," but I really needed to ask him. "What is this about, Syo?" He asked a little more sternly.

"It's about something we both have in common, but I'm not allowed to say anything. I talked to Ringo-chan this morning, but I forgot to ask her some things." I replied. With this, he seemed to understand a little bit. He understood why I was being so secretive.

"Go out by the gate tomorrow and we'll drive out to my house. You can't get much more private than that, so is that okay?" His expression lightened a little bit. I guess he really did want to help us, just like Ringo-chan.

"Yes! Thank you very much!" I replied smiling up at him. He waved bye and continued to walk to his destination. That was actually a lot easier than I expected it to be.

"Syo-chan! Syo-chan!" I turned around to find Natsuki running up to me.

"Hi Natsuki." I smiled up at him as I greeted him.

"Why were you talking to Hyuuga-sensei?" He knew that I loved Hyuuga-sensei from his movies, but he also knew now that Hyuuga-sensei was in love with Ringo-chan, so he shouldn't be worried….

"Just some things that I needed his advice with. Now that I think about it…" I waited a little bit as I thought up a good plan. "You're free all day tomorrow right?" I asked him and he nodded slowly, as if I were going to get him to do something he didn't like.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything to you," I giggled a little bit, "I just want you to go to Hyuuga-sensei's house with me tomorrow. I was going to ask him some stuff."

"Oh, okay then," Natsuki replied with a bright smile. We walked to the forms and talked about how weird it was that all of our teachers gave us free periods today. Natsuki said that his class listened to Nanami play the piano and some other people too. We walked up the stairs to our dorm room and went inside. The door clicked and we were alone in our dorm room again. Even though we didn't do anything in class today, I felt kind of sleepy. I plodded over to my bed and layed down on it. I heard shuffling and felt Natsuki get into my bed with me.

"What are you doing Natsuki?" I murmured as I felt him push me to give himself more space to lay down.

"I want to take a nap too. Please Syo-chan?" he pleaded in his cute voice.

"Fine." I secretly felt happy that he tried to force his way in to take a nap with me.

"Syo-chan." Natsuki said my name.

"Mm?" I grunted.

"Syo-chan." Natsuki called my name again.

"Mm?" I grunted again.

"Syo~chan~" Natsuki sounded like he was having fun with this.

"Yeah Natsuki." I actually made a reply using words this time.

"I just felt like calling out your name." He giggled as he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. "Syo-chan, turn this way so I can see your face," Natsuki finished off with his innocent request. I shifted around so my face was right in front of his.

"You happy?" I asked feeling my cheeks get slightly warmer.

"Perfect." He giggled and kissed my lips. He pecked them over and over and started tickling me.

"Natsu- Natsuki… Natsuki stop!" I couldn't control my laughter as his fingers traveled around my waist and his lips on my neck. I tried my best to tickle him back but it didn't work. I decided that the best option was to run away. I smacked the covers away and tried to make my escape, but he knew all of my ticklish spots. "Natsuki, please stop!" I begged as I started to lose my breath.

"I will if you kiss me." He replied as he continued to tickle me.

"Okay, I will. I will, so please stop tickling me!" I begged again, and this time the tickling stopped. He opened up his arms as if to say "come here" and had an adorable smile on his face. I crawled closer to him and pecked him on his lips.

"No Syo-chan! An actual kiss!" Natsuki pouted and crossed his arms. This time I put my hands on his shoulders and kissed him. "Again," Natsuki said after I sat down on the bed. I did as asked because he was so adorable with his innocent request. I kissed him again, this time keeping our lips together for a little longer. "Again," Natsuki whispered as soon as our lips parted. Once again I kissed him, this time a little longer than the last. As I was about to part our lips, Natsuki wrapped his arms around my waist. Our lips parted but only for a second. Natsuki got me to sit on top of him. Once again, people would say I was straddling him, but we weren't looking for that kind of friction. We just wanted to hold each other, touch each other, to be as close as physically possible without melting. My arms wrapped around his neck as his arms tightened around my waist. Natsuki bit my lip slightly and my mouth opened because I gasped. Before I knew it, Natsuki's tongue was exploring my mouth. It felt weird and good at the same time, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not, but it didn't matter. Natsuki loosened his arms around my waist and I felt his fingers at the hem of my shirt. He snuck his hands into my shirt a little bit, but then somebody knocked on the door.

"Nacchan! Syo-chan! Are you guys in there?" Otoya's voice was heard from the other side of the door. "I'm coming in!" He called out after about ten seconds. I was panicking because I was still breathing hard from our small make-out session and my face felt like it was on fire. Natsuki also wouldn't let me go and I was still sitting on top of him. "Ah! Nacchan! Syo-cha…" Otoya blushed when he saw that I was on top of Natsuki. "SORRY FOR DISTURBING YOU!" He ran out the door screaming this with his face as red as his hair.

"What's wrong with you, Otoya?" I heard Ren ask Otoya on the other side of the door.

"No- nothing!" Otoya tried his best to defend our privacy.

"Natusuki! Let go of me." I whispered to ask him to let me free. This was so embarrassing, I couldn't let everyone see us in this state! Yet Natsuki's response to my request was to wrap his arms around my bare skin even tighter.

"Ah! Hahahahaha!" I started laughing extremely loud because it tickled.

"What the hell are you guys doin-" Ren's eyes opened up wide. I mean extremely wide. I didn't know that a human's eyes could open up so wide. Ren cleared his throat. "Well, um, I never expected you two to get so far so quick. I'll be, um going then. Sorry to disturb." With that, Ren closed the door behind him. It was nice enough of him to not go around telling everyone, well at least not in front of our door.

I sighed as I put my forehead in the crook of Natsuki's neck.

"I love you Syo-chan. Please don't be mad. I didn't mean for that to hap-" Natsuki apologizing to me made me feel bad so I just kissed him to let him know that it was fine.

"It's okay Natsuki," I smiled at him. "Let's take our nap." I crawled off of him, saw the clock, and noticed that it was almost four in the evening, so I grabbed my phone and set an alarm to wake us up at six. Natsuki cuddled up from behind me and kissed my neck.

"Night night Syo-chan," he whispered into my ear.

"Night Natsuki," I replied as my eyelids started to close.

Two hours later, my alarm woke both of us up.

"Ready for dinner Natsuki?" I asked as we both unwillingly crawled out of bed.

"I guess, I would want to take naps with Syo-chan more, but food sounds okay." I got a reply that made me feel all bubbly inside. Because of the bubble feeling, I kissed Natsuki. He kissed me back. We continued this until we heard a knock on our dorm door.

"Is… is it safe to go in right now?" We could hear Otoya's voice nervously ask us this.

"Come in Otoya!" I replied. Otoya opened the door slightly and peaked in. Nothing seemed off in his eyes, so he walked in. I think I sat a hint of blush still on his cheeks.

"You guys ready to go down for dinner?" Otoya asked as he walked over to us.

"We were just about to go," I replied. I felt bad about what Otoya had to see, so I decided to apologize about it. "Otoya, about earlier, sorry you had to see th-"

"Why are you apologizing? I walked in on your safe room where you two could literally do anything. I should have asked if I could or couldn't come in," he explained. I guess he was right, but I've never seen Otota so surprised before. "But to make sure… you guys weren't, um… you know… having um, se… sex right?" Otoya's blush was more visible now, and I think my face looked the same.

"No! No! We were just kissing, and one thing led to another and it just looked like we were!" I stuttered as I replied and I felt my face get hotter.

"Okay, good. I knew that you guys loved each other a lot and have loved each other since you were little, but you only confessed to each other like two days ago. I didn't think you two would rush anything, but just wanted to make sure that you do that with preparation and with protection." Otoya raised his thumb at us to say "good" and his face was becoming a dangerous shade of red.

"We won't take things too fast and we will use protection. Don't worry. Let's just go down for dinner." I tried my best to end this awkward conversation that we were having.

My face was also getting to a critical color. when he three of us walked down to get food we saw everyone else and grabbed our food to sit with them. Ren smirked at us when he saw us walk up to the table everyone was at.

"So, what were you two doing earlier?" I didn't know if he was seriously asking the question or of he was just trying to get me blushing again.

"We weren't doing anything!" I replied as I kind of slammed down my tray to get my point across.

"We were just kissing," Natsuki quietly whispered to the group.

"Natsuki!" I yelled at him. I felt betrayed, he walked right into Ren's trap.

"But you," he pointed to me "were sitting on top of him," he pointed his finger at Natsuki, "and he," Ren kept his finger on Natsuki "had his hands, well, his arms under your," Ren pointed at me again "shirt." our whole table had blushing faces at this point. "Mind explaining that to me, well all of us?" Ren knew exactly how to get on my nerves.

"I just got Syo-chan to sit on my lap so I could kiss him more, and so that he could wrap his arms around my neck." Even Natsuki started blushing a little bit. "I really like it when he has his arms around my neck, it makes me feel loved." Natsuki finished his little explanation. I could see that the girls had smiles on their faces. I just wanted to hug Natsuki right then and there. He was so adorable. Nobody could think that he actually wanted to go all the way. We just really wanted to be closer to each other. The rest of the guys at our table were all slightly blushing. Natsuki's answer seemed to satisfy Ren, so he didn't question us anymore. We all excitedly talked about the weekend as we ate dinner. Nanami and Tomochika planned on making a song together just for the fun of it. Tokiya said that he had some stuff he needed to do off campus. Otoya said he planned on visiting the orphanage that he used to go to. Hijirikawa said he was going to practice his calligraphy. I didn't ask Ren because I knew what he was going to do: Hit on girls. Natsuki and I told everyone that we were going to Hyuuga-sensei and Ringo-chan's house. With that, I said that I wanted to get an early start so I was going to head up first. I told Natsuki to take his time.

I walked outside to go back to the dorms. It was a bit chilly, but not too bad. I looked up at the sky and the stars shined brightly over me. The moon was so bright, and it felt very relaxing. I was finally back in the dorm room. I took a quick shower, dried my hair, brushed my teeth, and slipped on my boxers and pajama pants. It was too hot today in the dorms, so I decided to go without a shirt for the night. Natsuki still wasn't back yet and it was getting a little late. I decided not to think about it too much and go to sleep. I layed down on my bed and it was lonely because Natsuki's warmth wasn't there. It didn't smell like Natsuki, and it was so empty. Natsuki is killing me. I want him to be with me all the time, I want him to always be smiling and happy. Hating the way that my bed felt, I went over to Natsuki's bed and slept on it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) In Japan it is not a law to wear seat belts unless you go onto the freeway, or well highway... now they are making it a thing to wear them but some people still don't wear them unless they are on the highway.  
> 2) Ojyamashimasu = I will be coming in type thing. It's what you say in Japan when you go into someone else's house. It is considered a courtesy type thing.  
> 3) Okaeri = Welcome home.  
> 4) Tadaima = I'm home.  
> 5) Itadakimasu = What people say before they eat. It's just once again a courtesy type thing.  
> 6) Ittekimasu = I'll be on my way/ I'll be going.  
> 7) Itterashai = Bye. It's what you say to the person who is leaving but will come back to the place that they are leaving.  
> Wow... I'm supposed to be half Japanese over here but I still can't explain some of these things... sorry about that. Also! If you know what these things mean, I'm not making a fool out of you or anything, just some people prefer to know what the romaji is because some don't know.

When I woke up to my alarm and turned it off, I noticed that the bedding wasn't mine. I also noticed a weird warmth that I wasn't familiar with on my back and around my waist. When I turned around, I saw a puff of blond hair and a soundly sleeping Natsuki. I smiled as I burned this image into my brain. His lips were parted a little bit and his body was relaxed. His hair was sloppily covering his face and I lightly pecked his cheeks, then his forehead, and lastly his lips. I couldn't help myself. He looked so adorable and kissable, but he started shifting around a little bit. I stopped kissing his face. His eyes fluttered open.

"Good morning Natsuki." I smiled at him, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Good morning Syo-chan," Natsuki replied with a giddy smile plastered on his face. "You looked so cute last night cuddled up on my bed. I'm sorry that I made you feel lonely though, I didn't know you missed me that much." His giddy smile turned into a slight frown.

"It's okay Natsuki, I wasn't lonely at all," my cheeks flushed. I was lonely, but I didn't want him to know I grabbed his hand from around my waist and entwined our fingers. "Don't be sad though," I continued as I planted my face in his chest. "When you're sad, it makes me sad," I finished in a barely audible voice.

"Syo-chan, say that again," Natsuki coaxed me.

"Say what again?" I asked with my face still planted on his chest.

"Just now you said something like it makes you sad when I'm sad or something. Say it again, Syo-chan." Natsuki kept pressing as I felt my face get hotter and hotter.

"I didn't say that, and even if I did say that I wouldn't repeat it. Come on, we need to hurry up and get ready to go to Hyuuga-sensei's house." I lifted my head from Natsuki's chest and ran to the bathroom with a change of clothes.

"Syo~chan~, Syo~chan~" I heard Natsuki call my name from the other side of the door.

"What's wrong Natsuki?" I asked while slipping on a pair of slightly faded blue jeans.

"Can you at least give me a good morning kiss?" Natsuki begged as he started scratching the bathroom door like he was a dog.

I opened the door, pulled the collar of his shirt, kissed him on his lips, and slammed the door shut right after.

"Hehehe" I heard Natsuki giggle, "I love you Syo-chan," He said as he walked away from the door. Natsuki was being really lovey-dovey, like he wants a lot of attention. Did me sleeping on his bed make him that happy? I took off my shirt as I kept asking myself that question. I grabbed the dark blue and white striped long-sleeved shirt that I planned on wearing and slipped it on. Next was fixing up my hair with the normal four pins, two crossing each other and two above it to hold my hair in place. After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I was finally done with my morning routine.

"Did you want to eat something, Natsuki? I'm honestly not really hun-" I lost my voice as I saw what was in front of me. Natsuki was taking off his shirt. His back was towards me and all I saw was his well defined back. I mean, he wasn't buff or anything, but he was well-shaped enough for me to want to run back into the bathroom and cool off my face.

"Oh Syo-chan!" Natsuki came running to me with open arms.

"What's wrong Natsuki? Why are you being so attached to me today? Put some clothes on first!" I tried to run away but he grabbed my arms and pulled me up for a hug.

"I just wanna hug Syo-chan!" Natsuki answered in his bubbly voice. His arms wrapped around me tighter and tighter and I thought I saw my soul slowly slipping out of my mouth. Right before I was about to pass out, Natsuki let go of me.

"Just put some clothes on and hurry up. We didn't say an exact time but Hyuuga-sensei said in the morning so he might already be waiting for us out in front of the school." I tried my best to get Natsuki to put his shirt on.

"Hai~" Natsuki replied as he finished getting ready.

I sighed as I walked over to my closet with all of my shoes. I grabbed a pair of combat boots that went up a little past my ankles. I went to my hat stand next to grab the beige fedora that I normally put on my head and looked over my shoulder to see if Natsuki was ready or not. He was finally ready so we walked out of the door together.

As we got closer to the gate, we saw Hyuuga-sensei waiting in a red convertible with a pair of sunglasses on.

"Hyuuga-sensei looks so cool," Natsuki whispered into my ear.

"He does," I whispered back to Natsuki. "Sorry Hyuuga-sensei, did we keep you waiting for a long time?" I called out to him and his head turned to us.

"No worries, I just got here too. Go ahead and hop in back." He replied as we walked closer to his car. Natsuki and I got into the car and started to buckle up. "All buckled up? We need to use the highway, so I need you two to have your seatbelts on" Hyuuga-sensei warned us as we finished getting our seat belts in order.

"Yep, we're buckled up sensei!" Natsuki replied excitedly as if we were going on a field trip.

Hyuuga-sensei chuckled as he started up the engine and asked. "So what did you two want to talk to Ringo and me about?"

"Thanks again for letting us go over to your house. I just wanted to know how you two keep up your relationship and how you two solve things like keeping it secret from Saotome. I wanted to know how you two kept your relationship in check, without people knowing and with Saotome always everywhere. I would also think that you two wouldn't really have much time for each other either." I replied getting a little embarrassed realizing what I just said.

"You would miss me Syo-chan?! You would want to spend time with me?!"Natsuki glomped me and I felt my cheeks slightly get warm.

"Natsu-, Natsuki! Get off, I'm trying to have a serious conversation here!" I felt my cheeks continue to get warmer as I attempted to push him off.

"Hahaha" Hyuuga-sensei laughed out loud "You two won't need to worry about that. I mean, look at Natsuki! He's stuck to you like glue. I'm sure that you two will be able to make time for each other no matter what." He smiled at us in his rearview mirror.

Hearing his reply made me blush even more but I decided to mentally thank him because if I were being honest, that was really bothering me. Idols are really busy, they do commercials, dramas, they sing, have concerts, all the like. We would probably be together for a lot of the things that we do considering that we plan to be in the same idol group, but it just feels like things will happen and that they will never be like they are now.

The drive to Hyuuga-sensei's house was nice. Natsuki had our fingers entwined and didn't let go. He smiled at me and went back to looking around, he looked as happy as a dog out for a ride with its head sticking out of the window. The wind blowing through my hair gave me this little thrill. It felt like I was flying or something, like I was free from all of my worries, that the wind would blow everything away. It just felt like Natsuki and I would never have problems and that he would always be by my side to tell me that he was there for me and that he loved me. I internally groan at myself there because, really, did I really just say that?

We finally got to Hyuuga-sensei's house. It took about 20 minutes, but it was a relaxing 20 minutes, though we barely talked, it wasn't awkward at all, just nice.

Hyuuga-sensei parked his car in front of a house that was one story but looked relatively large. It seemed homey and comfortable on the outside and I couldn't wait to get inside and talk to Ringo-chan.

"Tadaima." Hyuuga-sensei called out to the empty hallway that we saw as soon as we walked through the front door.

"Ojyamashimasu" Natsuki and I call after Hyuuga-sense.

"Okaeri!" The three of us heard Ringo-chan's voice as he ran in with an apron over his clothes and a spatula in his right hand, but something was off. The person in front of us had Ringo-chan's voice, and had Ringo-chan's body figure, but the person in front of us wasn't Ringo-chan.

"Hyuuga-sensei," I whispered. Hyuuga-sensei looked to me as if to ask what's up? "Who is that?" I whisper again as quietly as I can so the man in front us can't hear what I'm saying.

He kind of chuckled as he replied, "That's right, you two haven't seen him without his normal getup on. That's the Ringo-chan that you know, but in his normal clothes." Natsuki and I looked at the person who we now knew was Ringo-chan and Natsuki ran over to him to hug him.

"Ringo-chan! You look so cute! You're cute in your normal outfits at work and school, but you look just as cute in guys clothing too!" Natsuki was smothering Ringo-chan with his hug and it looked like Ringo-chan needed help. I went to grab Natsuki and he reluctantly let go of his poor teacher.

"Sorry Ringo-chan, I'm just so used to… you know… the dresses that you normally wear and your, uhh, your wig." I felt a little embarrassed as I said this. I looked back at the person that I now knew to be Ringo-chan. His hair was cut kinda short, even for a guy, and it's the same color of pink as his wig. It falls slightly onto his forehead, the kind of hair that you just want to mess with just for the heck of it, just long enough to pinch in between your index finger and thumb. He had glasses on. Square ones actually. The lenses aren't all too thick and they actually really suited his face. But out of everything unfamiliar, his smile was the same: Bright as always.

"It's okay Syo. I normally never go out without what you normally see me in, but this is the home that I share with Ryuuya, so I think it's okay if I let him see this side of me." He smiled at me as Hyuuga-sensei snuggled behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. Ringo-chan turned to look at Hyuuga-sensei's face and he pecked his lips.

"THIS IS SO CUTE!" Natsuki started whisper squealing as he started to pull his phone from his pocket. "Must take a picture" he whispered and he whimpered as I took his phone away from him.

"Give them their privacy." I whispered to him with my face feeling warmer than it should be if it were normal.

"What are you making?" Hyuuga-sensei asked Ringo-chan with their faces mere centimeters apart.

"You're going to have to wait and see!" Ringo-chan replied in a teasing voice. "Now go make our guests feel at home." he finished, giving Hyuuga-sensei one more peck on his lips.

Hyuuga-sensei seemed to reluctantly release Ringo-chan's waist as he said "Follow me, I'll show you guys to the living room." With that, Ringo-chan went back doing whatever he was doing.

As the three of us walked down the narrow hallway, a couple steps from the entrance to our left was the kitchen and dining room. We saw Ringo-chan humming as he was making our lunch as we padded by. A few more steps and we came to a door in front of us. Hyuuga-sensei walked in, leaving the door open for us. What came to view was a really comfortable and roomy space. There was a large couch, a couple single chairs, and a t.v. that I would wanna say was longer than how tall I was. There was a glass coffee table between the t.v. and the main couch. Hyuuga-sensei went grabbed the remote to the t.v. and turned it on as he walked over to one of the single chairs to sit. I nervously shuffled over to the larger couch while Natsuki walked, well skipped, behind me saying ooh and ahh to everything in the living room.

Sitting on the couch was really awkward. It made a bunch of noises because it was a fancy leather type and I started getting super nervous even though nothing was wrong on the way here. I swear that my hands were sweating enough to soak up a bath towel. Natsuki sat next to me on the couch making me jump slightly, and he was all smiles. He probably just wanted to know what was for lunch. How was he not nervous at all? We were in our teacher's house. I mean how can we not be nervous. Now that I think about it, it's not normal for students to go over to a teacher's house and ju-

"So, is there anything that I can answer by myself for you guys?" Hyuuga-sensei cut off my mental rambling.

"How long have you and Ringo-chan been together?! How did you guys meet?! Are you two married?! If not, do you plan on marrying each other?! Do you plan on-"

I slightly jab Natsuki's side with my elbow and whisper to him, "Natsuki, calm down. You're asking too many questions at once."

"It's okay Syo, he can ask away," Hyuuga-sensei looked over to Natsuki and continued, "I will answer what I can but I might need you to repeat some of the questions so, you asked how long we have been together, that actually goes along with how we met." He smiled at us as he remembered, "The two of us went to the same middle school and let's say that he was a little bit of a weird guy and I didn't really know how to approach him. I thought that he was the type of person I wouldn't be able to handle. In the second trimester of our third year of middle school my teacher had a bright idea of pairing us together, and not keeping the chairs separate. It was pure coincidence that he became my seat partner. After getting to know him, he didn't seem too bad a guy so we became friends. About a month before graduation I found out that we were going to different high schools. By this time, I already knew that I had a crush on him, even if I didn't want to admit it to anyone. We walked to and from school and sometimes we hung out after school. We shared email addresses, but we never gave each other our numbers. I got the guts to ask him for his number because," he paused for a little bit looking a little flushed, "I know what I'm about to say is really dorky, but don't laugh. I really wanted to be able to hear his voice, even if we couldn't hang out or walk together to and from school. I knew he would make new friends, but I just wanted to be able to hear his voice." Natsuki had a smile that screamed "that's so adorable" and looked between Hyuuga-sensei and me.

"Sensei, I don't think that it's" I raised my hands up to do the air quotes thing "dorky, if I didn't share a room with Natsuki now, I probably would have done the same thing a little while back" I admit. Now Natsuki is looking at me like he wants to murder me with his death grip of a hug, and he does, but I slip away before I lose my soul for the second time in a day.

Hyuuga-sensei coughed to get our attention back, "Thanks Syo, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one." He smiled and went back to the story, "From there, I think you can kind of guess what happened. That guy over there" he probably meant Ringo-chan, "He texted me every night, called me every day. It was borderline annoying, but to know that I could hear his voice every day made me happy and we sometimes made plans to meet up with the new friends that the both of us made at our new schools. One day though he asked me if only we could just meet up. Not with our other friends, but just the two of us. I agreed, but I didn't know why he only wanted it to be just us. After we watched a movie, we walked over to a park and sat down on the swings. The day felt weird but normal. I caught him looking over at me multiple times getting nervous like he needed to tell me something and right there on the swings was the first time that I was given a letter. To my surprise, it wasn't a regular letter but a love letter. As I read it I didn't know how to reply so my eyes just opened up wide and my mouth was saying silent words as it opened and closed like a fish. Ringo at first thought that I was trying to turn down his confession and he actually said something like you must hate me now and find me weird. He thought that I didn't want to be his friend anymore. Still unable to form words at that time, I just grabbed his hand and stopped him from awkwardly running away. I told him that I felt the same way and that I was glad he confessed to me because I never would have gotten the guts to do so myself. By this time the two of us were in our summer of our second year of high school, there was only one and a half more years left until we could go to our dream college. It was a college similar to the school that you two go to right now, it was for idols." With the end of the story, Hyuuga-sensei huffed out a little sigh of relief that his side story was finally finished. "You also asked if we are married or not. The answer is no, well at least for now." Hyuuga-sensei came up and walked over to us and whispered into our ears, "I plan on popping the question but haven't decided how to do it just yet, but that's a secret between the three of us" he pulled his head back and did a wink thing and I didn't know how to feel about that, but I think that Natsuki had enough happiness written on his face for the both of us and maybe even Ringo-chan.

"Lunch is ready you guys! Let's eat!" We heard Ringo-chan's voice from the dining room, and followed after Hyuuga-sensei.

"Ringo-chan! It looks so good!" Natsuki screamed as soon as he saw the lasagna. I swear that the food was sparkling because it looked so perfect.

"Thank you Natsuki." He smiled, "There are also some sauteed vegetables if you feel like eating them." Ringo-chan finished as he got into his seat.

Once we were all at the table, Hyuuga-sensei across from me, Ringo-chan next to him, and Natsuki next to me, we all clapped our hands together and said, "Itadakimasu" in unison.

Natsuki was digging into his plate of food like his life depended on it, I guess not eating breakfast was really getting to him now. The lasagna tasted as good as it looked. Natsuki finished his lasagna and looked up at Ringo-chan with a little bit of sauce on his chin.

"Ringo-chan, can I have more?" Natsuki looked up at Ringo-chan, then looked down, and then looked up again, wondering if he would get yelled at or something. I wiped his chin with the napkin that was next to his plate.

"Go ahead. You must be really hungry Natsuki." He giggled and stood up. "I'll get you another piece. The same size as the one that you just had, right?" Natsuki nodded his head so much, I was afraid his glasses would fall off.

"Thank you!" Natsuki yelled after Ringo-chan went back into the kitchen. When he got back and put Natsuki's plate down, Natsuki dug into his food as if this would be his last meal or something.

"Sorry about the mess." I apologized for Natsuki's odd-to say the least-eating habits.

"It's nice to know that somebody enjoys the food that I make. Mr. Grumpy-face over here never comments on my cooking." He poked Hyuuga-sensei's arm and he looked at Ringo-chan in shock.

"I do say stuff about your cooking, just… maybe not… often…." He finished off while leaving a little glow of pink on his face as he stuffed more lasagna in his mouth.

"You love my cooking. Just admit it." Ringo-chan kept pestering Hyuuga-sensei as he continued poking his arm. "Ryuuya, admit it." Ringo-chan was just smiling like Natsuki does, all mischievously.

"Okay, I do love your cooking. Syo doesn't even know where to look!" Hyuuga-sensei replied as he looked at me awkwardly flailing because I didn't know if I should have been looking away to give them their privacy or smiling like a little kid like Natsuki was.

"Do-Don't mind me." My voice is hiked up a couple notches and my face felt hot enough to melt a tub of ice cream. I started messing with my lasagna and awkwardly stuffing it in my face.

The rest of lunch was covered by small talk here and there and Natsuki asking for more food about three times.

"So what did you two want to talk about?" Ringo-chan asked as we all sat in the living room. Ringo-chan and Hyuuga-sensei sat on the main couch. Natsuki and I sat on the floor in front of them with the coffee table to our backs.

"To put it all into one big question, how do you two manage both work and your relationship, though you're not supposed to be in a relationship? Especially because you're both men? We'll be in the same boat as you two. Well, I hope we will be. We want to be able to become idols, so you two are like our upperclassmen in the sense of experience," I finished, and looked at Ringo-chan and Hyuuga-sensei.

The two looked at each other, then at the two of us. Ringo-chan reached out to hold Hyuuga-sensei's hand and Hyuuga-sensei did the same. They looked at each other lovingly, like all they needed in the world was each other.

"Just remember that no matter what happens, you two love each other. Hold on to that fact and never let it slip your mind, no matter how hard things get. Even if you don't have time to see each other, just know that there will be a time when the both of you will have a break in your schedule. No matter what happens, as long as you two have each other, nothing will go wrong. That's all you need, Syo." Ringo-chan replied to my question with confidence. I saw a slight glimmer in his eyes. It seemed like he was about to say something more, but he held on to his words.

Natsuki and I looked at each other. We looked back to our teachers and clasped our hands together.

"Thank you Ringo-chan, Hyuuga-sensei," we said in unison.

It was actually starting to turn a little past one o'clock. Natsuki and I asked Hyuuga-sensei to drive us back to school so that we could go back to school and finish our left over homework.

"Come over again whenever you like! But don't forget that if you tell anyone about our relationship or if you let anyone know how I look like without my normal look, I will not hesitate to torture you two at school!" Ringo-chan called out to us as we climbed into the convertible. Ringo-chan always scares me with his malicious voice. He seems so cute on the outside but says disturbing things sometimes. I can't help but feel that his threats are not just simple jokes.

"Thanks Ringo-chan, but we won't say anything. Our lips are closed!" Natsuki replied as he made the action of zipping up his lips and locking them closed with a key.

"Ittekimasu," Hyuuga-sensei said to Ringo-chan before giving him a little kiss on his cheek.

"Itterasshai," Ringo-chan replied as he watched Hyuuga-sensei walk over to the car that we were waiting for him in.

We all buckled up and finally got onto the road. Natsuki and I waved at Ringo-chan as we vroomed out of the driveway.

"Were you able to get the answers you wanted?" Hyuuga-sensei asked me as he looked at me through the rearview mirror.

"Yeah, I think I was able to get the answer that I wanted. We may be in the same situation in the sense of loving another guy and that we're going to be in the same line of business, but we probably share our love for the other differently. That's why Ringo-chan stopped saying what he was about to say, right?" Hyuuga-sensei's face softened and he simply nodded.

The rest of the drive was quiet just like the drive on the way to the house. It was nice and this time, Natsuki fell asleep on my shoulder. He looked like he was having the time of his life with the smile on his face. He must be dreaming about Piyo-chan or maybe he made a whole Piyo-chan land where he was dancing around with the random Piyos and they were all having fun.

When we got close to the school, I woke Natsuki up. He said that he didn't want to wake up but I told him that we could take a nap together as soon as we got up to our room. He agreed, and when the car came to a stop, we both got out, bowed to Hyuuga-sensei and walked over to our dorm room.

I slung Natsuki's arm around my shoulders so I could keep him up and walking like a normal person and not like a zombie. We finally got to our room and I let Natsuki collapse on his bed. I took his shoes off for him and put the blankets over his shoulders.

"Syo-chan. Sleep with me." Natsuki mumbled as he called out to ask for my attention.

"I'll be right there. Make some room for me," I called back as I took my shoes off and put all my unwanted clothes in their normal places.

I plodded over to Natsuki's bed and scooted up into his larger body. His warm arms wrapped around my waist and he snuggled his face into my chest. He looked so cute and I couldn't help but play with the strands of hair that were covering his forehead. He looked so peaceful while he was sleeping, his breathing calm. I started patting his head and thought, "There will probably be a lot of bumps ahead as we get older. No matter how much we want things to be the way they are forever, time goes by. It's time to start looking ahead, towards the future. Towards our future."


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some background info...  
> 1) In Japan, the legal drinking age is 20, the US made it 21 and I think Germany might have it as low as 18? But in Japan it's 20! :D  
> 2) For those of you who do not know, in Japan, the bathroom where you take care of business is in a different room from where you take a shower. Also, when you take a bath/shower in Japan there is pretty much two different rooms. One room is where you take care of all of the brushing teeth, washing face, etc., and where you take off your clothes before you enter the second room which has the bathtub. Before you get into the bathtub you sit on (most of the time a plastic or wooden) seat and you wash off your body first, to get rid of all of the sweat and gross stuff. Then after washing off your body, you get into the hot tub to relieve all of your pain and tension, it's a way of relaxing. The reason why you wash off first is because everybody in the household uses the same hot water that the first person used in the bathtub. Sometimes the water stays for two days (water bills can get really expensive, it can easily go over 10,000 yen, which used to be about $100, now maybe $81). In normal households, the husband (the male who brings in all of the money) takes the bath first when it's fresh, then the rest of the family.  
> 3) I don't really know much about alcohol (because I'm not legal for it yet) but with sake, there is dry I guess you can call it, which I think is bitter, and the sweet which is self-explanatory. Sweet is more-or-less made for female drinkers, while males prefer the bitter kind. Depending on the way that the place makes the sake, the alcohol content can be raised or lessened, just like any other alcoholic beverage.

Everyone was coming over today. We all planned to have a little get-together regarding Starish's success. I was trying to prepare for our guests, but there was this glob stuck to me.

"Syo-chan, Syo-chan, one more? Just one more please?" Natsuki started begging me as he held onto my waist. I kept on trying to walk, making Natsuki drag his legs along the floor.

"No! We need to prepare for Haruka and everyone else who's going to come!"

"Just one more and I promise I will help you prepare," Natsuki kept whining.

"Okay, I got it, stand up or I can't kiss you!"

"Yay!" I swear I thought I saw a tail wagging behind him for a second.

I got on my tiptoes and pecked his lips. I started to walk away thinking that I could go back to preparing, but I was stopped by a hand grabbing my wrist.

"No Syo-chan, I want you to kiss me! Actually kiss me!" Natsuki whined.

"Augh, you're so needy!" I loved that about him, though I would never admit it. I got back on my tiptoes and kissed him this time. He bit my bottom lip a little bit, making me gasp, and stuck his tongue in my mouth, deepening the kiss. Natsuki put his arms around my waist and pulled me in closer to him. He let go of my lips but wouldn't let go of my waist.

"Natsuki, you promised. We need to get ready now." I was trying to be persuasive, but I knew that I wasn't doing a very good job of it. My cheeks felt flushed and I was breathing a little hard. I pushed his chest trying to get out of his arms. He pecked my cheek and let me go. It was surprisingly easy to get him to listen this time.

"I love you Syo-chan," he called out to me as I started preparing the table.

"I love you too Natsuki. Can you help me now?" I replied, feeling a little embarrassed.

We set the table together, cleaned up a little bit, and set the food on the table. After setting up, we sat together on the couch as we waited for our friends to come.

"Syo-chan." Natsuki called my name and I looked up at him.

"Yeah?" I replied. He parted his lap and opened his arms as if to welcome me. He wanted me to sit on his lap.

"Only until they come." I tried to stress that it was only a short thing as I crawled onto his lap.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and held my hand, then entwined our fingers and snuggled into my chest.

"Syo-chan."

"Yeah?"

"Syo-chan."

"What Natsuki?"

"Syo-chan."

"What Natsuki?" I asked for the second time, my tone a little harsher.

"Nothing, just felt like saying your name." He flashed me the cutest smile ever and giggled as he pecked my lips.

Suddenly the doorbell rang and I got up to open the door.

"Coming!" I yelled to let them know that I was on my way. Natsuki still held on to my hand. He lifted my left hand and kissed the band on my ring finger. I smiled at him, pecked his lips and walked over to the door. When I got there, I opened it to let our friends in.

"Come in!" Natsuki said excitedly.

Haruka brought a small cake. Tomochika said that she and Haruka decided which one to get together. Ren, Otoya, Masato, and Tokiya all came in after them. We filled our glasses with juice and soda and cheered for Starish's success.

"Wait, why are we cheering with soda and not something like wine?" Ren suddenly asked. Of course he would be the one to ask this.

"We don't have any alcoholic stuff, Ren. Syo-chan can't handle his liquor!" Natsuki answered with a stupid, innocent smile. On the other hand, Ren started having this evil mischievous grin.

"That reminds me of something that happened on your twentieth birthday, Syo." Ren grinned evilly. This guy loved anything that was blackmail worthy.

"What happened on Syo-chan's twentieth birthday?" Haruka and Tomochika asked in unison.

"Well, we all decided to take Ochibichan to a bar because he was finally of legal drinking age. The people at the bar stopped us though because the people in front thought that he was too short to be 20. When they saw his ID and the date, they let him through apologizing for the inconvenience that they had caused. It's not very surprising that those people stopped us because he is short. Ouch!"

"Ha! That's what you get after you call someone short too many times in a row, stupid Ren!" I said, regaining my balance from the kick I had just given him under the table.

"Anyways," Ren continued, "After we finally got inside the bar and took our seats, we looked at the menu to see what might be good to start off with. Masato, Tokiya, and I decided on the special sake that was there at the time. If I remember, it was a dry type, not sweet, but it was still pretty good. Natsuki, Otoya, and Ochibichan decided to go with some white wine. You would have thought that he would be able to drink at least two glasses right?" Ren raised his eyebrows after saying this, and he got two heads nodding slowly to answer his question. "Well, you're wrong about that. Syo couldn't even handle a single glass of wine." He started laughing a little bit after saying that, "and he turned into a completely different person. We all know that Syo has his emotions on his sleeve, but he never admits anything. Syo got up out of his seat and walked over to Natsuki's spot, sat on his lap, put his arms around Natsuki's neck, and was acting like Natsuki. Whenever he wasn't getting Natsuki's attention he would kiss him or tug on his shirt and try to get Natsuki's attention and he started yelling about something." His smile was getting to a dangerous point.

"What was he yelling about?" Nanami asked, curious about what I was yelling when I was completely drunk.

"He was yelling about how Natsu-"

"Shut up, Ren. You will not hear the end of me forever if you finish what you are about to say," I warned while giving him my best death glare, you know, ignoring the fact that my face felt like I put boiling hot water on it.

"But the Lady asked me what happened. There is no way I can deny her something, o-chi-bi-chan." He said my nickname that I hate slowly just to piss me off more. Natsuki held my hand under the table and rubbed circles into the back of it to calm me down. I decided to stay quiet because I knew that resistance was futile. "As I was saying, he was yelling about how Natsuki was leaving him alone for too long and how much he missed Natsuki. He said something about feeling lonely because Natsuki and him didn't have enough time to be together, and that they should just ditch all of us to go snuggle in bed or something." With that, I decided that it was okay to give him a kick in the shin again, so I did. "Hey! It's the truth. It was funny, but I gotta say it was also kind of cute. Wow I just said something really out of character… Anyways, he also talked about the lipstick commercial that Natsuki did. What did you say about that again?" Ren looked over at me and I was not replying to that.

"He said that I looked sexy and how he didn't want anybody else seeing me like that, but it was for a job." Natsuki answered Ren's question and had a worried expression on his face, like he still felt bad about not being able to spend much time with each other because some jobs that we did were separate. "I mean, if I knew that that was how Syo-chan felt, I would have asked them to do the pictures differently, but he didn't say anything."

"Yeah, 'cuz I didn't want to ruin a job that would probably get you more jobs in the future," I mumbled out only loud enough for Natsuki to hear. He looked over at me with eyes that looked glazed with a thin layer of tears and kissed my cheeks in front of everyone. He repeated this about four times going back and forth between both of my cheeks and finally kissed my lips. Then he put his forehead on mine and quietly whispered, "I know, but I still made you feel sad at that time, Syo-chan. I love you Syo-chan." I could barely hear the words coming out of his mouth because it was almost as if he was sighing.

"It's okay, Natsuki," I whispered equally quietly, " I love you too." I heard someone clear their throat and realized that we were in front of all of our friends. I swear my head exploded. Yes, I think I saw a field of flowers with my grandma waving at me telling me to go to her. I snapped out of it and excused myself to go to the bathroom. When I stood up, I saw that Nanami and Tomochika were smiling at me like they just saw the cutest thing in the world. Masato, Tokiya, and Otoya were blushing, but had smiles on their faces, and Ren was smirking at me. Natsuki though looked like he was still torn about something in his head, so I pulled the sleeve of his sweater and got him to be excused with me. I dragged him to our bedroom in the back of our house and I could hear the rest of our friends laughing and giggling about some random things. I sat Natsuki down on our bed and cupped his cheeks into my hands. "What's wrong all of a sudden Natsuki? You were so excited about everyone coming over. That was something that happened in the past. It's okay. I'm completely over it." I raised his face up a little bit so that he could look at me and smiled at him and kissed his lips. After getting married, I noticed that as long as we were alone together, I was okay with touching and kissing. And if Natsuki had one of his sudden sad moments like now, it was the best medicine to get him back to being his cheerful self. I wrapped my arms around Natsuki's neck and put his face in my chest, and he wrapped his arms around my waist. I stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head telling him that everything would be alright, that nothing was going to happen, that things were in the past and that I still loved him. He lifted his head up to look at me.

"Are you sure Syo-chan? We still don't have that much time but, do you still love me?" He really looked like he was about to cry, so I grabbed his left arm from around my waist, placed his hand on my right hand, and held up my left hand next to his.

"Natsuki, you see these two gold bands that are on our fingers?" I asked him, and he nodded. "This is proof that I love you, and that I will always love you." I entwined our left hand's fingers and smiled down at him to kiss his lips.

"Syo-chan, forever and always?" I saw a hit of a smile on his lips.

"Forever and always Natsuki." This time I was brought down onto Natsuki's lips by his grip on my shirt. He kissed me gently and his lips stayed there for a while. He let go when he felt satisfied and smiled up at me. This was the Natsuki that I knew and loved. The one that always annoyed me about wearing annoying costumes and always made me felt like I was going to melt from embarrassment. This was my Natsuki.

"Now we better go back into the dining room. We're keeping our guests waiting." I playfully pulled his arms as I got him to get off of the bed, and he followed me into the dining room where there was laughter and warmth.

"You guys are finally back! Is everything alright?" Otoya asked as he saw the two of us walk in through the hallway that leads to our bedroom.

"And you call yourselves hosts." Of course this came out of Ren's mouth, and I was really tempted to go punch him, but Natsuki stopped my arm before I was about to hit him.

"Sorry, sorry. Otoya, thanks for asking, but we are a-okay." Natsuki replied as he made an "o" with his thumb and index finger. I can't believe that I love this guy, but I really do, dammit I can't help it.

We went back to our seats and started talking with everyone again. Tokiya, Masato, Nanami, and Tomochika all gave us warm smiles and I returned the smile.

"Your wedding felt like it was just a couple days ago, but you two have been married for about half a year already huh?" Nanami suddenly brought up.

"Yep!" Natsuki replied cheerfully. I felt my face getting a little warm again.

"You two were so cute! It was a small wedding but it felt perfect for you two. It was on such a pretty, sunny day, and the look that you two gave each other while Syo was walking up to the altar was just the cutest thing in the world." Tomochika added.

"I can still remember how much you two argued about both of you wearing tuxes. Natsuki really wanted to get you into a dress, but you kept saying no and he had to take you in a tux or not have the marriage at all." Otoya giggled as he remember how much we argued about that. It was pretty bad. I swear whenever we went on a date together he would drag me into a wedding dress store to look at wedding dresses for me to wear. He wouldn't stop talking about how "adorable" I would look in a dress. But I didn't want to wear a dress. We could play dress up all he wanted at home in the privacy of our room but not for something that I would remember as hopefully (and turned out to be) the best day of my life. I hope it was the best day of his life too.

I was so nervous on the day of, and I didn't know what to do. I was sweating bullets and Nanami and Tomochika were reassuring me, telling me that everything would be fine. As soon as Otoya saw me in the bride's room, he ran up to me and hugged me to congratulate me on the event that was about to occur. I couldn't help but continue fretting about not tripping down the aisle. I thought that it was going to be so nerve racking, but as soon as I started walking up the aisle and saw Natsuki there waiting for me. All my worries were thrown out the window as soon as I saw Natsuki in a white suit, waiting for me. His expression was so gentle and he looked like he was so happy, like the only thing he was seeing was me. I took confident strides up to the altar after I saw his face. I only looked at his face as I walked the few steps that it took to reach him, I just wanted to hold his hand at that point. The preacher that agreed to do our marriage stood in front of us and said a bunch of things that I don't remember. It sounded important, but I only remembered what you always saw in the movies. You know, the "until death do you part" thing. He asked for the rings to be given to us so we could place it on our significant other. My younger brother brought the rings and he looked so happy for the both of us. We slipped the rings onto each other and said our vows. Then we were told to kiss, and we did so, Natsuki bending down a little for me as I went on my tiptoes. I think that it was the best kiss that I have ever had with him. He wrapped his arms around my waist and picked me up only to go around in circles making the both of us dizzy. He giggled and I couldn't help but laugh with him as we spun around and around with everybody around us yelling congratulations and throwing flower petals at us.

"I was afraid Natsuki was going to fall with you in his arms while he spun you two around." Tokiya commented as soon as the memory ended in my head.

"I was too. He just kept spinning, I'm surprised that we didn't fall down." I replied as I laughed remembering it again.

"And then there was a certain someone that decided to start hitting on Nanami when she received the bouquet after you tossed it, remember that Ren?" Masato asked in a harsh tone. "All you think about is trying to get Nanami to go out with you."

"Hey! I thought it was my lucky day, you know. And she did catch it, so I thought hey, why not try and go for it. Was it that bad of me to do that?" Ren tried to defend himself.

"We were celebrating the marriage of two of our group members, you should have been happy about them, not thinking about getting in our composer's pants." Tokiya replied with his eyes closed as he took another sip of his water that he was drinking. Everybody at the table went quiet and Nanami's face was looking on the verge of exploding.

"O-Okay then!" I tried to get rid of the awkward tension that was settling around us.

"Y-Yeah! Um so who wants some of the cake that Nanami and Tomochika brought over?" Otoya tried to help me with the awkwardness. I thanked him with my eyes.

"Hyuuga-sensei and Ringo-chan's wedding was really pretty." Natsuki whispered, I guess still thinking about our wedding as well.

"Ringo-chan wore the fluffiest dress that I had ever seen in my life but it really fit him well. I'm sure that Hyuuga-sensei didn't have to force him in it either!" Natsuki replied saying the last part a bit louder to get his point across about wanting me to wear a dress.

"No matter what you would have done, I would have never worn a dress, Natsuki!" I replied from the kitchen as Otoya placed little pieces of cake on each plate that we had set out.

"Oh yeah, and he also wore heels! Would you ever wear heels for me Syo-chan?"

"I am never wearing heels Natsuki, not unless you want me to break bones!" What was he thinking?!

As Otoya and I did our best to get the plates out, we decided to be safe and only take two each so we wouldn't drop the cake on the floor. When we walked back into the room, we still saw the tension at the table. What Tokiya said seemed to really get to Nanami, which is really understandable. But the others seemed to be slightly mad at Ren for probably really only thinking about having a relationship with Nanami for those types of benefits.

"Uh, Nanami~ what type of cake did you and Tomochika buy for us tonight?" Otoya asked as he followed me back to the kitchen to grab the remaining slices of cake.

"It's just a regular cake!" Nanami squeaked out. She was still extremely disturbed with what Tokiya had said. "Tomo-chan, can you tell them what's in it?" She asked her trusted friend to help her out in this situation.

"Uh, yeah. If I remember right, the person at the store said that there was a mango flavored something in there. So it's supposed to taste like mango, and they said that there was something with vanilla extract in it as well, maybe the icing. So you might taste a little bit of vanilla. It just looked pretty, which is why we decided on this cake." Tomochika finished her long explanation of what the cake was supposed to be.

We all started eating the cake in awkward silence. This time Natsuki was the one to break the ice.

"Hey! You guys are all being too quiet! Let's talk about something!" Natsuki demanded as he looked at everyone.

"Is there a movie that anyone is interested in at the moment?" Masato finally talked.

"Nothing that comes to mind," Tokiya replied and looked at everyone else. "Anyone else?" Everyone just shook their heads.

Everyone was still being awkward, not talking, and were all quietly eating the cakes in front of them. Trying to think of something that could start a conversation, I remembered something that would be embarrassing to Ren. I cleared my throat to get everyone's attention.

"So want to hear something embarrassing that happened to Ren?" Everybody's eyes widened after I said the name. Everyone knew Ren as the type of person to be smooth at everything and if he did have a fail moment, it was when nobody was around. But ha, I have seen him fail. It was when he was drunk.

"Syo-chan! Hurry up and tell us what happened!" Otoya yelled and I looked at everybody's expectant eyes, well except Ren because he didn't know what was coming his way.

"So it was on this one day that Ren kind of had a bad day at work. Things went smoothly in the end but it had taken a long time to do his role correctly so he decided to ask me to be his drinking buddy. I told him I wouldn't drink, but he just told me to let me be the person he just rants everything out to. I was fine with that because that just meant blackmail stuff, which is what I'm now telling you." The look on Ren's face was priceless at this point. He looked like he was devastated. "He told me how the director of whatever he was doing that day was being an asshole and demanding the most nitpicky things from him that wouldn't have changed the quality of the thing at all. Of course because it's a job Ren said that he complied to all the director's commands. At this point Ren had already drunk five bottles of sake. They are small bottles, but he was drinking the type that had a higher alcohol content in them. Then some girls came into the place that we were drinking at and one of the girls noticed who we were. Ren called them over and got them to drink with us and as he was trying to hit on one of the girls I told him that we needed to leave because we had to do something for Starish the next day. He let me haul his ass out of the place but not before he tripped over his own foot because of how drunk he was in front of all the girls. They all giggled and if I remember right Ren cut the inside of his mouth a little bit." As I finished my small monologue, everybody's eyes were wide with surprize.

"Did anything else happen after that Syo-chan?" Natsuki asked as he patted my shoulder trying to get my attention. There was actually something else that he told me. I didn't know if it was something that I should have been saying though. He did say that it was when he was younger and that it doesn't really apply anymore… or does it?

I found myself asking this question as I slowly opened my mouth to speak again. "Ren did say something but he didn't want me to tell anyone." I almost whispered these words because he was in a state that was embarrassing to say the least. The inner turmoil can't be described in words! "Uh you know what nevermind, I'm not going to tell, I would feel really bad about it if I said it out loud!" I finished as the flashback once again invaded my brain. Ren and I were walking back to our dorms after we left the girls and he was using my shoulder to make sure he wouldn't fall and trip on his face again. He was saying random words and giggling and then he suddenly yelled in my ear.

"Ochibi-chan!" startled, I almost dropped the limp body that was in my arms.

"What?!" I questioned in confusion to his sudden loud voice.

"I have a secret to tell you." He whispered as if there were people around us trying to hear what this drunkard was saying. He put his index finger on his lips and said, "Shhhhhh"

"What do you need to tell me?" I asked trying to be as cooperative as possible with this guy in my arms.

"It's top secret!" He repeated once again as if this was a child's game.

"I get it already, what do you need to tell me?!" I was getting a little frustrated because no matter how drunk you are, I could swear that your personality would not change this much.

"When I was younger, I used to like Masato. Shhhh!" This time instead of putting his index finger on his lips he put it on mine. "That was when I was younger though." He hiccuped after saying this leaving me with my jaw open. This guy liked Masato. Maybe he still likes him? I mean they did share a dorm room together and they were always close but Masato always attempted to keep his distance. Ren also knew how to piss Masato off more than he pissed me off sometimes. Maybe he still likes him now?!

This realization suddenly struck me.

"Ren!" I called out to him and waved him over to get him to come to me. Ren stood up and came around the table to where I was sitting, but before he could bend down to put his ear to my face, I dragged him out of the dining area.

"What's with you all of a sudden, Ochibi-chan?" Ren asked confused as I led him to the hallway.

"I need to ask you something," I whispered, hoping that nobody else was listening in on this conversation.

"What?" Ren seemed confused.

"When you were drunk that one night, you told me a secret about you having a crush on someone. Is that true? If it is true, would it be okay for me to tell everyone? I kind of left them all hanging…" I started to get into my own world, but I noticed that Ren's face was getting to a violent red state.

"So it's true that you like Masato?!" I whisper-yelled, surprised that he actually batted for the same team.

"No, it was something that happened when we were kids. As Icchi said, I'm trying to get into the little lamb's pants. So don't say something like that to everyone." This being said though meant that he no longer had feelings for Masato, making it okay for me to spill the beans.

"Okay, then I will tell them, I mean you don't like him anymore right? So it would be okay if everyone finds out, it's just a thing that you had when you were little." I smiled in my excitement of having some dirt on Ren.

"No! It's not okay for you to tell everyone." Ren called out to me.

"Too late!" I yelled as I got back to the dining room.

"Are you going to tell us what you didn't tell us earlier, Syo-chan?!" Otoya looked like he was just about ready to jump my bones to get it out of me.

"Yes, yes I will so just calm down a little bit."

"Everyone in the room sat waiting for what I was about to say but we heard the echo of Ren's voice in the hallway that I left him in.

"Don't you dare, Ochibi-chan!" But I ignored it. He always messes with me, so messing with him shouldn't be an issue right?

"When that idiot was drunk, he told me that he needed to tell me something top secret. It was pretty funny because he was acting like a little kid." I giggled at the memory. "Ren told me that he used to like Masato when he they were little."

The whole room went quiet, as if I said the world was going to end today. Everyone just looked at me with wide eyes and hanging jaws.

"You're kidding me, right?" Masato probably voiced what everyone was thinking.

This was not the reaction that I was expecting everyone to have. I mean yeah, I was expecting everyone to be surprised, but not like this.

"Ren, you liked Masato?" Natsuki asked as if to make sure that this was no joke. "I thought that you liked him, but I never said anything because you would have probably gotten mad at me or Syo-chan would have gotten mad at me, but really, you liked Masato?!" Natsuki stopped to take a deep breath because he was talking nonstop.

"I used to like him. I told Ochibichan about this when I was drunk," Ren replied, trying his best to stay calm about the situation.

"Aww, so you don't like him right now?" Natsuki continued questioning as his expression showed how sad he felt about Ren's answer. Ren twitched a little bit at my side. Masato was paying close attention to him now.

"N-No, I don't feel attracted to him." That stutter made it obvious that he did feel something for him.

"Quit lying to yourself, Ren. It's pointless and brings nothing but regret," I warned, because I knew what he was doing. He was going through denial. He probably also didn't want to be seen differently by his friends, but it was pointless. I denied how much I liked Natsuki, but I don't regret it now. To be honest, I've never been happier. I love him so much and it makes me pretty happy that I can say that without being too embarrassed now.

"I'm not lying to myself, Ochibichan," Ren replied, giving me his awkward death glare.

"Excuse me," Masato whispered as he got out of his seat and dragged his legs to the bathroom.

"Go follow him," I whispered to Ren as I jabbed him in the stomach.

"Y-Yeah, I'll uhh, sorry." This was the first time I had seen Ren so flustered. This proves that he does like Masato. If I don't say so myself, I did a good job.

I sat back down in my chair and started finishing off my cake. Everybody else still seemed a little shocked about what happened, but didn't really say anything about it. We all just hoped that Masato could keep Ren in check and not have girls all over him. I'm sure that everyone in the room was thinking that if they got together, they would be perfect for each other. Ren being the polar opposite of the well-mannered Masato, Masato would take care of him.

The two came back to the dining table with lips slightly bruised (we all know what happened there), but nobody commented on it. Everybody was starting to get a little tired, and we all did have work to do the next day.

By the time that is was nine, everybody was out of the place, and once again, Natsuki and I were alone.

Looking at the mess that I had to start cleaning up, I sighed and lifted up the plates from the dining table.

"Syo-chan, are you okay?" Natsuki asked a little worried, probably because he heard me sigh.

"I'm fine, but will you help me clean up?" I asked him with a slight smile on my lips.

"Sure!" Natsuki had the biggest and brightest smile as he said this. I swear it was like looking at the sun. I couldn't help but giggle a little at this.

"Thanks, Natsuki." I pecked his cheek and he started picking up the cups that were on the dining table and followed me to the kitchen.

We went back and forth from the dining table to the kitchen until all of the plates, forks, knives, spoons, cups, and other cutlery were off of the table.

"I'll wash the dishes so can you dry them for me, Natsuki?" I asked as I got some water and soap on the sponge that I was going to be using.

"Sure!" Natsuki replied as he grabbed the dish towel that was somewhere.

I started up the water, started scrubbing at all of the little specs of food on the plates and other things, rinsed them, and handed them to Natsuki. As he dried them, he started humming a song that felt really nostalgic. I couldn't remember who sang that song.

"Who sang that song again?" I asked Natsuki as he stopped humming.

"Hata Motohiro. This song is Suisai no Tsuki, I think I sang it to you when we had a fight." Natsuki replied slightly pained by the word fight. We rarely had fights, but when we did, they didn't turn out the best. I mean yes, I get fake-mad at him all the time. He is always too touchy and always wants my attention, but sometimes fights come. I guess it's normal when you're in a relationship with someone for so long. Natsuki started singing the chorus and I followed.

The were many things that I couldn't tell you. Words were not enough.

Not remembering the lyrics after this, we both decided to go back to humming while continuing to wash and dry the dishes.

"Syo-chan." Natsuki called out my name. His hands stopped working on the dish that he was drying at the moment.

"What's wrong, Natsuki?" I asked as I turned off the faucet. It looked like he needed to talk about something, and that something looked serious.

"I-I… Syo-chan, do you think we will fight a lot?" This was a surprising question but I think it's normal for couples to fight, so I told him exactly what I thought.

"I don't think that we will fight a lot. I really don't want to fight a lot because when we fight, you get sad, and it's not like I'm any happier. But you and I might have our different thoughts on things. For example, if you try to name our child Piyo-chan, and you're serious about naming him or her Piyo-chan, that argument will never end." I flashed him a small smile making him understand that I was just joking, he broke into laughter because we both knew that he may love Piyo-chan, but that would never be the name of our child.

"I might make the Piyo-chan's eggs commercial song that I did our child's lullaby, but that's okay right, Syo-chan?" Natsuki shot back with the edge of his lip cocked up a little bit.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you want, but you'll never be singing that lullaby in front of me. I would cover the child's ears from the horrible song." I poked Natsuki's stomach to mess around and he giggled. Natsuki wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed me closer to him and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"Syo-chan, I love you so much, so so so much." Natsuki brought his head down and kissed my lips.

"I love you too, Natsuki" I replied as I kissed him back.

Natsuki put his forehead on mine and kept repeating "I love you, Syo-chan." And every time he did, I replied with "I love you too Natsuki."

We had a lot of these moments as well because for some reason, it put us both at ease. The two of us stayed like that for about 10 minutes, and Natsuki finally said something other than the only four words that were being spoken between us.

"Let's finish the dishes and get ready for bed." Natsuki covered his mouth as he yawned. "I'm getting tired." He finished his sentence after the yawn.

"Yeah, let's finish the dishes," I replied as I pecked his lips one more time and let go of him. Before he let go of me though, he pecked my cheek and went back to the slightly wet dish that he had left in the sink.

Natsuki started humming another song that I could have sworn was Milk Tea by Hata Motohiro, and that song also felt slightly nostalgic. Natsuki and I were able to finish the rest of the dishes quickly after that and nothing changed as the two of us continued to wash the dishes.

"Potty, potty, I need to go potty," Natsuki started singing as he dried off his hands really quick and ran to the toilet. I shook my head a little bit because nobody says potty at his age, but I couldn't help but have a little smile on my face. I turned on the warm water for the tub.

I walked over to the bathtub area. Our toothbrushes were next to the sink along with other little toiletries and before getting into the bathtub, I started stripping out of my clothes, wanting to hurry up and just relax in the hot water that was getting warmed up. From outside of the door, I could hear Natsuki calling out my name, asking where I was hiding.

"I'm in the bathtub!" I replied as I started to walk into the bathtub room. I closed the door behind me and sat on the little chair that was set out. I turned on the hot water of the shower head and let it hit me for a while before I got the body soap and washed up. As soon as I was about to get into the tub Natsuki burst in stark naked.

"I can come in too, right?!" Natsuki looked like he was about to have the time of his life, just taking a bath with me.

"Yeah," I replied as I dipped my body in the hot water.

"Yay!" Natsuki yelled as he started humming the Piyo-chan song while washing his body down.

"Syo-chan, scoot up. I can't get in!" Natsuki exclaimed excitedly. As requested I scooted up a little to give him space, and the water around us sploshed out as he got in. His long legs were now around my short legs and his long arms around my stomach, his hands lying directly on my navel. I leaned into his chest and he closed the distance between our faces and kissed my lips. The kisses were chaste and innocent, my favorite kind. I felt like I was loved and that he was treasuring me. Normally couples probably liked shoving their tongues in their partner, but I liked these kisses. They felt like more than simple physical contact.

"Natsuki, I'm going to get out first, but I still need to brush my teeth and stuff. When you feel like coming out, don't forget to turn off the hot water."

"Okay!" Natsuki replied as he grabbed a little rubber duck that was on the edge of the bath.

After I dried off my body, I started slipping into my pajamas and preparing for bed. I went through the nightly routine of flossing and brushing my teeth, washing my face, and slipping into the covers of the bed.

I heard the bathtub door open and I knew that Natsuki finally finished talking to the rubber duck. The faucets in the room next to the bathtub area turned on and I heard him humming as he brushed his teeth. He was taking too long, the bed was too cold and too large to be alone in.

"Syo-chan!" Natsuki called out my name as he ran to our bed and flopped on it.

"Nn" I grunted and put the blankets over my head. "Can you turn off the lights? I want to sleep," I finished, and he did as asked and turned off the lights. He spooned me and kissed the back of my head.

"Syo-chan, can you turn around?" Natsuki was being needy today, but it was okay, when he was like this, he was adorable. I complied and faced him. His lips pressed up on my forehead, my nose, my lips, my cheeks, my neck and my collar bones. For a second I thought that he wanted to do that tonight so I tried to push him off because my body was too tired for that but Natsuki just clung onto my waist and kept his face in my chest. He was the taller one so I should be the one doing that, but he liked to try and cuddle up into me sometimes and whenever he did I just patted his head.

"I love you Natsuki. Good night," I whispered and kissed his head.

"I love you too, Syo-chan. Nighty night," He replied as he squeezed me a little tighter and then released.

I fell asleep soon after, surrounded in his warmth, his love, and joy.


End file.
